From Hell: A Love Story
by Mayumi-H
Summary: Before Handsome Jack, before The Vault, before Pandora, for Axton, there was only...Hell. A tale of how the Commando got his turret, and more. *Updated Wednesdays *Rated M for language, violence, and sexuality
1. Hunters and Toys

_Disclaimer: This is an unlicensed work of fiction. Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and all associated characters, names, and places are owned by Gearbox Software, LLC. No copyright infringement intended. Any resemblance to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. _  
_All original characters and places are owned by the author, with respectful acknowledgement of the universe created by Gearbox Software._

This story is rated M for Mature, for violence, adult language, and adult situations. Chapters with sexual situations of more than passing reference will be marked appropriately at the top.

* * *

_The story so far: The destruction of The Key in The Vault of the Warrior opened a starmap of other Vaults scattered across the galaxy. And what's a Vault Hunter without a Vault to hunt?_

**From Hell: A Love Story**

**Prologue: Hunters and Toys**

Lilith's directive had been simple enough: get confirmation of the Vault on Pyrrha and get out. No unnecessary exploration, and no engagement. Of course, with six competitive Vault Hunters, that wasn't so easily done as it was said.

"You'll split into teams of two," Lilith told them, her voice tinny over the ECHOnet. "Each team will have a primary contact in Brick, Mordecai, or myself. Let us know when you've got something, and we'll coordinate the rest from here."

"Sounds fair," Maya said, looking around at the rest of them. She nodded toward the lanky, helmeted assassin. "Zer0 and I work well together-"

"_I feast on rat feces!_"

Maya jumped as the oversized psycho lunged into their circle, half-brandishing his buzz axe. He growled through his mask at the rest of them, like some sort of overprotective mama skag.

"Or, not." Eyeing the psycho, an amused smirk came to her lips. "I guess Krieg is coming with me, then."

Zer0 was the only one who hadn't flinched. Bowing his head, as though to acquiesce, he said, "Red flowers / Bloom among the flames of war..."

Salvador clapped him on the shoulder. "Now, you're speaking my language!"

"Take your hands off me," Zer0 finished, light reflecting from his helmet in a commentary flare.

"Awesome!" Gaige exclaimed, her hands clenching into fists. "That means I get turret-man."

Axton frowned at her. "I got a name, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Gaige muttered, dismissing him with an off-handed gesture. "Whatever." Dropping her voice to a desirous thrum, she rubbed her palms together. "I can't wait to get my hands on that turret...!"

Maya nodded. "It's settled."

"Whoa, whoa!" Axton said, waving her off with both hands. "You're not seriously expecting me to look after a kid, are you?"

Before Maya even opened her mouth, Gaige grabbed him by the sleeve. "Aw, come on," she whinged. "Let me play with your turret."

"The Sabre Turret autocannon is a refined piece of military hardware," Axton corrected her through a sneer. "It is not a toy."

"I'll let you play with Deathtrap."

"I don't wanna play with your robot." Axton sniffed down at her. "And what in hell's a girl doin' with a killer robot, anyway?"

"He's my best friend," Gaige replied.

Maya's blue-colored lips curled in a smile. "Sounds like you two are made for each other."

It wasn't smart to argue with a Siren, so Axton let the girl and her robot tag along, under the specific condition she not pester him for his autocannon. Which, she did. Of course, she did. Relentlessly, as they trudged across their sandy sector. Or, as he trudged, anyway, since she tended to employ her hovering robotic minion as a sedan chair as much as a battle assist.

"Can't I just hold it?" Gaige said, from her seat on the robot's shoulder.

"No," Axton told her.

"Just for a minute?"

"No."

"What if you hold it, and I just look at it?"

"No!"

She humphed; typical teenager. "Why you no fun, son?"

"Why you so talky, gawky?"

Gaige rustled against her metal seat, making him look up, to find her feeling at her face and hair.

"You think I'm gawky?" she muttered through a worried frown.

Blowing an exasperated groan, Axton returned his gaze to his feet. "I just want you to shut up. You've been goin' non-stop since we made planetfall."

She humphed again, and he heard a scraping creak. Likely, those cybernetic arms crossing over each other.

"Dude!" she said. "I chose you because I thought we could bond on this trip. I mean, we're the only ones who use mechs. Besides Zer0, I think, but, you know. He's hard to talk to. All that Zen stuff, I can barely follow any of it." Another grating slide of metal-on-metal, and she was beside him, stepping half again as quickly to keep up with his longer stride. "I don't have anything in common with anybody else. I mean, you guys are all these big, wanted badasses, and I'm...I'm just an ordinary girl," she said, affecting a saccharine lilt.

Axton snapped to a halt and turned his head, shooting her a glare.

Dropping pitch, she added in a single breath, "Who happens to be a brilliant robotic engineer, wanted for the creation of unauthorized technology."

Beside her, the robot gave a whir.

"That's right, baby!" she crooned, turning to the robot to give it an affectionate pat along its arm. "Mama's talking about you!"

Rolling his eyes, Axton resumed pace. "And they called me crazy."

Gaige followed again, catching up with a two-step. "Really? Who did? I mean, you're a little too attached to that turret of yours-"

"Look who's talkin'!"

"-but I wouldn't call that 'crazy.'" She thrust her cybernetic arm in front of his chest, bringing him to another stop. "Unless..." Trailing off, her gaze wandered up and down.

He frowned, prompting, "What?"

She dropped her chin, to stare up at him from beneath a low-browed glower. "Are you...screwing it?"

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" he said, shoving her hand away.

"Well, everybody's heard the way you talk to it: baby, sweetheart-"

"That's-!" he started, but stopped his tongue, just in time.

Sparkling with interest, her green eyes fairly glowed up at him. "That's, what?"

Pushing down the bubble of self-loathing that threatened to make him spill, he clamped his mouth shut and shook his head, to set them to walking again. "That's none o' your business," he grumbled after a moment, and – thankfully – she let it rest there. For a while.

Pyrrha was just as desolate as her sister planet, at least the sector to which they'd been assigned, so when dusk settled over the far horizon, Axton called for a halt to make camp. Gaige fell in line readily enough, tossing the sleepsack from her pack onto the ground, near a neat-ish cluster of rocks that functioned like a headboard. As soon as she'd made herself comfortable, though, the interrogation started afresh:

"So. Your past. Tell me about it."

Axton let out a weary sigh and rubbed two fingers over the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, don't you ever give up?"

Gaige swung out one arm. "Look around, turret-man! We're in the middle of nowhere. What else are we going to do, but talk?"

"Sleep?" Axton suggested.

Dropping her arm, Gaige blew a "pish" sound from between her teeth. "We'll sleep when we're dead. I want to hear about you and your turret." Her mouth twitched in a sort of half-smile. "I'll just keep bugging you 'til you give in, so you might as well dish."

About that much, she was probably right. So, exhaling another sigh, he leaned back on his elbows, muttering, "What do you wanna know?"

"Anything," she said, and shrugged. "Everything. Like, where'd you get it? I mean, I've seen engineers use turrets like that before, but you don't strike me as the engineering type. More a point-and-shoot kinda guy. No offense."

"None taken," Axton replied with an unbidden smile.

She rolled onto her side, eyes wide as she propped her cheek on her metal fist. In the glow of her hovering robot companion, she looked much younger, almost cute, like a regular kid, as she fished, "So, what? Did you start out in tech corps?" The green of her eyes twinkled, and she leaned toward him, affecting a conspiratorial whisper. "Or, did you steal it?"

"I didn't steal her," Axton said pointedly. Lifting the block of compacted metal from his side, he turned it over in his hands, as the memories started to churn. This time, he let them come back, muttering, "Though, she didn't start off as mine."

Gaige grinned. "Sounds like there's more to _that_ story."

Meeting her inquisitive stare, Axton took a long minute to assess her.

She was young but smart, almost too much so for her own good. But, she'd seen her fair share of strangeness and drama, from Handsome Jack to Angel and Roland, and everything to happen since. He wasn't one hundred percent sure she could handle every sordid detail...but it would be nice to be able to talk about some of it, at least. The parts that still kept him up at night, no matter how much he tried to forget. The parts after Sarah, and before the Vault, the dangerous and wild days between. The parts about Hell.

"I'll only tell you this if you promise to keep it between us," he warned with a point of his finger. "No spreadin' it around to Mordecai, or Moxxi, or that little psycho out in Tundra Express. I mean it."

"Got it," Gaige answered with a swift and obedient nod. "Zipped lips. Especially around Tina."

Axton nodded, too, slowly. Drawing a breath, he offered her a smile and asked, "You ever been to Andromeda?"

Keeping quiet, Gaige moved her head back and forth.

"It's just past the Inner Ring," Axton explained. "Pandora's the roughest trip I've ever known, but every planet outside the Ring can get pretty lawless. The only folks who go to a border world either want to make themselves a name-"

"Or forget they ever had one," Gaige said, to complete his thought.

"Yeah," Axton said, nodding again. "Anyway, that's where it happened: Andromeda."

"That's where you found the turret?" Gaige prompted, and Axton paused. The answer was yes...but there was more to the story than that. Of course, there was.

Letting his gaze drift to Pyrrha's darkened sky overhead, Axton searched a moment for a familiar set of starlights. He felt his smile turn wistful, as he recalled that untamed town on the edge of almost-nowhere, where he'd first set eyes on that beautiful harbinger of fate.

"That's where everything changed," he muttered. "And I knew I'd never be the same."

* * *

**_Next: Far from home._**


	2. Far from Home

_The story so far: While on a routine Vault hunt, Gaige asked Axton to open up about his past, and how the Commando got his trusty turret. A tale that started not so long ago, on Andromeda...  
_

**Chapter 1: Far from Home**

Axton really should have known better than to stick his nose in somebody else's business, especially when that somebody was outnumbered, six to one, by a circle of dirty, rough-edged scavenger rats, all of whom Axton's NCO instincts screamed as being "hostile."

But the fallen form in the Andromedan dirt was clad in the same drab as his own old Dahl uniform, and camaraderie should have stood for something. Even if he was a deserter, at this point, probably with a hefty bounty on his head, if he knew Sarah at all. Which, on brief reflection, he didn't, not really, not after she practically threw her wedding ring at him and told him to get his ass out of the platoon and off to a border world while he could still walk.

Which was more than could be said for the kid in the dust, who bounced up from the ground as the alpha dog of the scavenger pack – a grey-haired veteran with more scars than actual face – kicked him in the side, his heavy boot making a dull thudding sound Axton could hear even from ten meters away.

"Hey!" Axton shouted, as the younger soldier coughed up something thick and phlegmy. "Didn't your momma ever teach you to play nice?"

The veteran swung his scattergun Axton's way. "Do yourself a favor, and keep outta this."

"Or what?" Axton asked, and smirked. "You'll knock me out with your breath?"

While Scarface curled his lip in a snarl, one of the lesser pups – a compact rat in mismatched clothes that looked like they'd been picked from too many bodies – crouched next to the bloody-nosed kid, poking the muzzle of his sawn-off into the soldier's loosened ruck. "Let's see what you got, baby Dahl."

The trooper reached out with one wobbling hand, voice bubbling with a strangled, "No. Don't-!"

"Shuddup," another pup told him, punctuating the statement with a cracking smack of his stock to the kid's brow.

"Hey!" Axton called again.

Scarface's hands tightened around his double barrels. "I said, step back, stranger. This is a private party."

"Hey, boss," Mismatch called, lifting something from the ruck. "Take a look at this!"

As the old grunt glanced away, Axton swiped his Jakobs revolver from his holster and leveled it at the vet's face. "Consider this my invitation, asshole." Doubtful he could take all these scavengers, but at least he'd go out swinging. "Now, let the kid alone, before I add another hole to your head."

Scarface looked back at Axton with a ready grimace, rumbling, "You asked for it," as he pumped the fore-end of his shotgun.

At that exact same moment, from the corner of his eye, Axton saw Mismatch pull some sort of brick from the trooper's pack. "What the hell?" the rat muttered. He gave a gasp, dropping the brick to the ground.

Scarface turned his head to look, and, though it was bad form in a potential firefight, Axton looked fully, too...and felt his grip go slack.

Bouncing upright from that formerly compact brick were pads, support struts, and a heavy trunk. From between the spread legs swung a cylindrical gun barrel, that locked into place with a click. The thing whirred, and Axton could only echo Mismatch – _"What the hell?"_ – before the mouth of that barrel spit the first volley of bullets.

Axton fell to the ground, the breath knocked from his lungs. For a nanosecond, he thought he might have been hit, but it was the kid on his chest, covering him with body and hands as, around them, Axton heard the loud clatter of rapid-fire ammo, from all directions. A few screams, and the unmistakeable splutch of perforated flesh. Then, abruptly, silence.

The chaos lasted less than ten seconds. He wasn't certain if anyone else was still alive, when the younger trooper pushed himself up and looked into his face, blinking his eyes. Blue, they were, as clear as virgin sky, and wide, as he asked, "You all right?"

Axton blinked, too. "I think so." He started to rise, as well, when the kid stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"Stay there. I need to power her down, first."

Axton stayed on his back but craned his head, to try and follow the other soldier. His gaze stopped halfway, though, upon the twisted face of the grizzled vet. Or, what was left of it: that automatic weapon had blown away the top third of the geezer's head, leaving only bloodied nose and beard, the mouth within forever frozen in red.

A series of chattering clicks and the blow of forced air grabbed his attention at the same time the kid said, "You can get up, now. It's safe."

Easing up to sitting, Axton looked around, to where the younger trooper was lifting a metal box in his hands. Moving carefully amid the riddled bodies until he reached the soldier's side, he kept his gaze fixed on the compact block of metal, as though it might pop to vicious life again. "What is that thing?"

The youth stood straight, too, and, with a distinct ruffle of pride, announced, "A fernbedienbare drehlafette."

Axton squinted. "Sorry. A _what_?"

The younger soldier looked up, mouth wide with a slightly crooked smile. "Touch-activated, remote sensor, nano-controlled autocannon," he explained, hefting the brick in his hands like showing off a new puppy. "One of a kind, with self-replicating ammunition. Modeled after the sabre-type turrets on deep-space battle frigates. Smaller, o' course, and lots more customizable." His smile fell as he turned serious. "Sorry about the tackle, but she'll target any bio- or mech-signature she doesn't recognize."

"'_She_?'" Axton echoed, cocking one brow.

The trooper smiled again, and shrugged. "She's too clever to be called an 'it.'"

Axton grunted. "Has 'she' got a name?"

The soldier regarded the compacted drehlafette with a thoughtful tilt of his head, muttering, "Haven't found one to suit her, yet." Shifting the brick to one hand, he struck out the other. "But, I'm Harald. Friends call me Hal."

Axton took his hand, gripping it with a firm pump. "Axton." He gave a subtle shrug. "And, I don't have any friends."

With another swift pump, Hal chuckled. "Well, you do, now."

Axton raised both brows to him, this time.

There was quite a bit odd about this kid. Though, oddness wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Most of the grunts with whom he'd served during his ten years in the military had been distinctly normal. And boring for that. So, he chuckled, too, briefly, and said, "You figure?"

"You saved my life," Hal muttered. "Stepping up like you did. That's more than anyone else has ever done for me. Thanks for that."

"Sure," Axton said, fighting down the sudden feeling of chagrin at this young man's genuineness. He nodded at the bodies around them, to change the subject. "We should make ourselves scarce, before the law shows up."

Hal shook his head. "Not much law around here. Good thing, I guess."

"Well, you should at least get out of those clothes," Axton told him. Hal's face fell with some surprise, prompting him to clarify: "They're a dead giveaway you're Dahl."

"Ah," Hal said, glancing down at himself. "Right." He gave another shrug. "Unfortunately, a new wardrobe's pretty far down the list. Spent enough money bribing my way off Phaestus, just to get here."

"Phaestus, huh?" Up close, Axton noticed the insignia at Hal's shoulder – Materiel Command – and let out a sniff. It must have been something serious for this gearhead to leave behind a cushy placement at Dahl central R&D. "You're far from home, boyo."

"Need to get farther," Hal mumbled as he stared down at the scavengers.

Axton bumped him in the arm, making him look up again. "I need to get out-system, too. How 'bout we beat feet together? I didn't get the chance to show it, but I'm good in a fight." He twirled his revolver around one finger, dropping it into its holster with a smooth whistle of gunmetal against leather and a smile. "What do you say?"

Hal's blue eyes flashed from the holster to Axton's own hazel ones. His mouth broke into a cautious smile, as he tilted his head at the bodies around them. "You certain you want to take your chances with me?"

"I'm a soldier," Axton replied with a growing grin. "All we know how to do is eat, fuck, and kill." He shrugged. "Besides, I can handle rats."

"These weren't rats," Hal told him with a quick shake of his head. "They were hunters."

Axton found his own smile faltering. "Bounty hunters?" He risked a glance at the metal brick, hazarding a muttered guess: "Did you steal that thing?"

He expected some indignation or shock at this hushed accusation, but Hal only snorted. "Course I did. She's mine," he said, as the proud smile returned once more. "I built her."

* * *

**_Next: Commonality._**


	3. Commonality

_The story so far: On Andromeda, Axton stumbled across another trooper on the run. A trooper with a very intriguing toy...  
_

**Chapter 2: Commonality  
**

They scavenged what they could do from the hunters before double-timing it out of there. Hal explained he had a hidey-hole in the town of Autochthe, but that was most of a solid day's walk away.

"Came out for supplies," the engineer told Axton as they hoofed, side-by-side. "Autochthe's got law, but they don't allow civvies to own ordnance."

Feeling at the grip of his Jakobs near his hip, Axton snorted. "That's just insane."

Hal gave a grunt of acknowledgment. "Guess it helps keep folks in line."

"One law," Axton said, and swallowed, the bitter reminder of the military police making his tongue feel thick.

"Figured it would be safer for me to pick up the contraband than the girls," Hal went on. Wiping again at the dried blood at the corner of his mouth, he appended in a mumble, "So much for that idea."

Axton's ears pricked. "Girls?"

Glancing his way, Hal sniffed a weak smile. "Oh. Yeah. 'Cin's Deadly Seven.'"

"A brothel?" Axton guessed.

"Everybody's got to eat. They're all right, though. Let me hole up in a spare room, in exchange for odd jobs and stuff."

"Like running guns?"

"Materiel," Hal corrected, his ruck bumping between them as he brandished the insignia at his shoulder.

Axton felt a twitching smirk come on. "Any house benefits?"

"The jobs aren't _that_ odd," Hal informed him with a snicker. "But, I needed to do something. Can't get off-planet without a ride. That takes cash."

Axton glanced at the ruck the engineer shifted higher. "Bet you could get a decent wad for that autocannon o' yours."

"No way," Hal said with a firm shake of his head. "The whole reason I left Dahl was to hold on to this baby." His long nose wrinkled up, pupils contracting in the blue. "They were going to sell her. To Hyperion!" He blew a disgusted breath through his cringing nostrils. "You know what those half-rate architects would do to her? Butcher her, that's what! Bastardize everything that makes her special, just for mass-production. Reprogram her nano-mites, pump her full of chems, clutter up her insides." Facing forward, he shook his head again. "I couldn't let that happen. Not after pouring four years of my life into her. Bastards at Requisition didn't understand that. So, I took her," he said, softly, as though talking about sneaking into a girl's bedroom, to steal her virginity under her daddy's nose.

"They didn't come after you?"

Hal shrugged. "I destroyed what schematics and drafts I had, but I'm sure I didn't get all of it."

"So, what was the point of taking it, if Dahl can just make more?"

"Fuck Dahl," Hal said, voice ripe with spite. "Every drehlafette they tried building before this failed: targeting system, ammo reconstitution, self-construction – there was always _something_ that didn't work. Until this one. And, she's mine," he added again, quietly fierce.

Striding beside him through this tirade, Axton smiled. The kid was passionate about his work, if nothing else. It was kind of cute.

"Well," Axton said. "Sounds like we got one thing in common."

Relaxing his stance of a moment, Hal looked over at him. "What's that?"

Axton cocked his head close. "Dahl wasn't in my future anymore, either."

"No?" Piquing his own brows, Hal looked pointedly at the service piercing above Axton's left one. "Those sergeant's bars look permanent to me."

The touch of the warm metal beneath his fingertips made Axton chuckle, despite the predicament that had necessitated such desperate measures as his desertion. "Nothing's permanent," he muttered, somewhat ruefully.

They stepped in silence a few moments before Hal finally said, "What happened? If you don't mind my asking."

"My CO and I had a falling out," Axton explained, and grinned humorlessly. "I wanted to get the job done, and she wanted a husband who'd follow orders."

Hal eased away a bit. "You were married to your commanding officer?"

"Operative tense being past," Axton said, lifting his dog tags and the woman's diamond ring clinking beside them.

The shallow lines around Hal's eyes and mouth showed some detached remorse, though, to be honest with himself, Axton knew he'd checked out of his marriage long before Sarah had told him to get himself gone from the platoon. He'd enjoyed her company – for a while – but, really, he'd only married her as a convenient escape route from his deepening missteps; as his wife, she wouldn't be compelled to testify against him in a court martial. And, she'd been a decent fuck, at least when they'd still been non-coms together. He lamented the loss of such sexual companionship...but he liked keeping his head more.

When he'd left, she'd wished him luck – not "well," just "luck," – but, in those words, he'd heard an implicit warning: _You'll never make it. Soldiers like you never transition to regular life. You'll slip up and blow someone's brains out, or you'll blow out your own_. He'd been too busy scrambling together what few personal possessions he'd had and could easily carry – the wooden-stock Jakobs revolver from his old man, two days' worth of water and rations, a change of clothes to ditch his uniform – to tell her to fuck off.

Dropping the tags and ring to his chest again, he sighed. Her farewell had been brusque, but he'd resigned himself to it without much extra thought. "She's better off without me, I guess."

"You're better off without her, you mean."

Breaking stride with a full-stop, Axton looked at Hal, tracing the subtle but witting curl of his lips as he smiled.

"Otherwise, you'd have found a way to make it work," Hal pressed. "Or, am I wrong?"

Admitting the truth of his own shortcomings to himself was one thing. Admitting them to a stranger was something else again. And, while he didn't particularly enjoy how easily this kid could read him, Axton did find his cheekiness charming. "No," he muttered with a creeping smile. "You're right."

"So," Hal said, starting their pace again with one exaggerated step. "Here you are: a Dahl deserter, striding among the wilds of the border planets. No prospects, but no debts, either." He spread his arms wide. "The galaxy full of danger and possibilities for a man willing to live by his wits and the weapon at his side. Alone...but, not." He swung his far arm between them, hand outstretched and open, and grinned. "Welcome to the club."

Axton didn't hesitate. "Permission to join the ranks," he said, taking the hand again.

Hal held on a second longer to shake his head. "No rank and file, friend. Everybody's equal, here."

"Partners?" Axton said with a growing grin. The sentiment was unfamiliar, but it tasted...right. Better than trudging through the dirt for Dahl's glory, certainly. And with that kickass drehlafette with them...

"Fifty-fifty," Hal agreed. "For whatever job comes along, at any rate."

"I been thinkin' about that. We're not gonna get off this rock being go-fers." Axton narrowed his eyes, to gauge the reaction to his next words: "How you feel about skiptrace work?"

Hal's brows went up. "You mean, bounty hunting?"

"Why not? It pays." Axton jerked his head the way they'd come. "And, if those jokers back there are any indication of our competition, you and me'll clean up!"

"You and I," Hal corrected, slowly. But the edges of his mouth twitched, cautiously hopeful.

"We," Axton said. "You. Me. And whatever you decide to name that autocannon o' yours."

Now, Hal smiled fully, as Axton just knew he'd do. "Sounds like a plan, partner," he said, and Axton nodded his approval.

Fuck Sarah and all her career soldier opinions. _This_ was the life he was supposed to lead.

* * *

**_Next: Beginnings._**


	4. Beginnings

**Warning**: Mature situations.

* * *

_The story so far: Loner ex-Army Sergeant Axton found himself a partner, a former Dahl engineer on the run, too. Now, they just needed a job...  
_

**Chapter 3: Beginnings  
**

They didn't run into any more trouble on the way or when they arrived to Cin's Deadly Seven, on the outskirts of Autochthe. Though, once there, it was difficult for Axton to keep to walking a straight line, with all the tits and asses on ready and welcoming display. No stranger to such establishments, he'd still gone too long since he'd enjoyed the pleasure of a woman's company. Sarah certainly hadn't obliged him, especially not at the end. She hadn't even been willing to give him a farewell fuck.

"Well, hello, big man."

Axton turned at the purr, shooting his best roguish smile at the filly with the strawberry-blonde hair coming to stand in a passed doorway. Her gold robe hung open, exposing a wide strip of pale, naked flesh beneath. The rug didn't match the drapes, though: he took specific note of the dark swatch of coarse hair between her thighs-

He walked into something hard – a support beam – and quickly righted himself with another smile. The girl just chuckled, making her little round of belly bounce.

"This way," Hal said, nudging him in the arm. He jerked his head toward the end of the corridor.

Axton followed, glancing back every few steps. "I dunno 'bout you," he said, his gaze going from the blonde to a set of passing swinging hips and the slender silver chain around them, its pendulum-like clasp nestled in a smooth cleft of dark-skinned ass. "But I could go for some pussy."

Hal hummed under his breath. "I'm a bit more concerned about those hunters," he said, as he kept them walking.

"My point exactly," Axton murmured, still distracted; his mouth watered at thought of that ass bumping against his hips. "A brush with death should make you appreciate life that much more." Facing forward again, he snickered. "And you gearheads don't get out nearly enough."

"I've gotten out," Hal said, a touch of protest in his voice. They made it to the far room – really, just a singles cot and a small trunk converted to a makeshift work table – and he set his ruck on the floor, muttering, "Don't care to eat where I fuck, is all."

Considering that earlier glimpse of minge, Axton snickered again. "That's the best part. Just thinkin' about it...!" He clenched his fingers in the air, like grabbing a woman's hips, and gave a lascivious growl.

Turning to the work table, Hal laid out a long piece of cloth and, with marked precision, began to arrange the tools upon it. "I need to sort this."

Standing straight, Axton crossed his arms. "If we're gonna run together, you're gonna have to learn how to lighten up. Nobody likes a killjoy." He glanced out the doorway, where an older but lusciously curvaceous brunette with artful snakes drawn over her arms and thighs shot him a sultry smile. He waved four fingers back at her, adding in a murmur, "Keeps the dick from gettin' hard."

"That doesn't appear to be an issue for you."

Sparing a look at his straining anatomy, Axton gave an unapologetic shrug of his shoulders. "I admit, it's been a while. All the more reason to let loose now." He regarded the younger man with a sudden sneer. "What are you, scared?"

Hal's face flushed, a violent contrast to his lab jockey pallor. "No! I just... You know, I'd rather spend my cash gettin' off-world than just...gettin' off." He glanced away, shifting a little on his feet.

Feeling a brief pang of regret for causing that look on Hal's face, Axton shrugged again, more cajoling, this time. "I got money. I'll buy."

"You'll pay?" Hal said, sniffing incredulously. "For me?"

"For both of us," Axton told him, and smirked. "Partners, remember?"

Hal squinted at him. "You mean, like...together?"

"Sure." Axton felt his smirk become a leer. "I can show you how it's done."

There was a long moment while Hal's focus roved over him, gauging, though not with any envy or aggro Axton could feel. It was actually flattering. "Okay," he said, at last, with a tiny nod.

"All right!" Axton clapped his hands together and gave them a fast rub. "You're familiar with the local crop, you choose. I'm up for anything." He showed his teeth in a wide and leading grin. "And I do mean, _any_thing."

His new partner might have been a bit of a stiff, but he had an eye for aesthetics, of which Axton enthusiastically approved. For their hour's purchased companionship, he chose the tattooed mistress, the titular Cin whose name adorned the sign above the front door. She was professionally accommodating for their cash, as well she should have been, seeing as how they were likely the most chivalrous men to set foot in the establishment in some time. She also didn't say no to the prospect of both of them, a treat Axton hadn't enjoyed since a bachelor party double-up with a juicy Nysian whore game for the challenge of a horny groom-to-be and his best man.

Sarah had been a great screw, sure, especially when they'd first started going at it. But she always wanted their sex to "mean" something, saddling him with time-consuming efforts of candles and sweet nothings and shit like that. "_Sometimes, I just want to fuck,_" he'd lament after the inevitable start-and-stop argument. "_Is that too much to ask?_" Slow dances and romancing were for his refractory period; he needed that first humping, thumping romp to get "in the mood."

This Cin understood that, her mouth and hands, her whole glorious body working tirelessly into a steaming sweat to bring him to release. Which he did, with an impressive spurt of spunk he let go onto the sheet.

"Why'd you do that for?" she asked, cocking one preened eyebrow at him from where he'd pushed her off his lap.

With a breathless snicker, Axton swung his gaze over to Hal. "That was great, but my buddy deserves a clean canvas."

Cin followed his look, smiling to comply. Crawling forward on hands and knees, she moved to the foot of the bed and reached for Hal's shirt. "It's okay, baby," she murmured, tugging him closer. "I'll be gentle."

"Not too gentle, now," Axton advised. "He's a big boy; he can handle it."

Cin gave a purr of distinct appreciation as she slid her hands over the younger man's front in lazy, probing caresses. "You certainly are," she hummed, while Hal closed his eyes and sighed.

Settling back against the pillows at the opposite end of the bed, Axton watched them, mesmerized by the whore's careful tenderness.

"You poor thing," she cooed, as she pushed aside the edges of Hal's shirt, to reveal a bruising stripe of flesh just over his belly: the hunter's handiwork from that morning. The muscles beneath the skin contracted at her touch, as she leaned forward with another low murmur: "Let me make that better." And, with the colorful snakes slithering with each shift of her hips, she pressed her face to his torso, the sound of slow, smacking kisses audible.

Hal let out a stilted moan of either pain or pleasure, Axton couldn't easily tell. And the sighing expression on his face didn't give any clue. Though, the stutter of his lips – turning wet from a flick of his tongue then quickly dry again in the room's dim heat – made Axton stare, as he left his focus from Cin's decorated curves to Hal's flushing face.

In his ears, Axton recognized the _pok_ of a button and the _click-click_ of a zipper. But he kept his attention trained on Hal, desperate to see this moment, as he whispered to himself, "Take it." The words hadn't been loud enough to be heard over the rustling struggle of pants, but the whore did as he said anyway, and he sucked a breath of excitement at the same time Hal did, when she put her mouth on him.

Hal's eyes snapped open, but they didn't go to Cin. Instead, they locked onto Axton's, so clear and sharp and piercing, Axton couldn't look away. He also couldn't stop his hand from going to his dick, stroking slowly at his own sticky mess. It had only been a few minutes, so he should have been still limp, but he found himself already at half-mast, and growing harder by the heartbeat.

Hal's breath quickened, mouth dropping open to give a soundless gasp. Axton stayed fast to him, stroking until he was full and thick. Then, pitching onto his knees, he went for Cin again. He'd wanted Hal to have his go, but, Jesus, his dick wouldn't wait.

Taking the whore by her hips, he pushed into her and started a steady thrusting that made her groan. Or maybe that was Hal, the tendons in his neck straining as he started to buck his hips, too. His blue gaze didn't falter, though, not for a single blink, and Axton matched the challenge with his own snorting, grunting stare, going harder, faster, balls tightening as he tracked a line of sweat from between Hal's eyes, down the side of his nose to the wet curve of his lip, when the familiar flare of endorphins from a second coming made his sight go dim a moment while his hips gave a reflexive final jerk.

He was aware, at some level, of slipping out again and falling back upon the bed. But clearer in his ears and head was the echo of Hal hitting the same peak, a breathy sound to which Axton could only assign the description "sweet."

Cin might have found Hal sweet, too, but it was a point of trade to spit. Catching his spunk in a delicate handkerchief, she slid away to clean up, leaving Axton to catch Hal, who started to collapse at the other end of the bed.

"Whoa, there, cowboy!" Axton laughed, jumping from the pillows to get his arms around the engineer. He hauled him further up the mattress, like pulling a drowning man from water; Hal even gave a gasping heave beside him as they fell back to the pillows again. He started laughing, too.

The slick sheen of sweat between them started to cool and dry, too quickly, but Axton grinned anyway. "How's that for a first job together?" he asked through a lingering chuckle.

"Wicked," Hal said. But, as he blinked his gaze clear again, he smiled, mellow, languorous, almost dreamy. "But, I could get used to it."

Still chuckling, Axton grabbed the short hairs on the back of Hal's head like the scruff of a pup. "This is only the beginning, partner," he said, pulling their heads together for a light bump of skulls. "Only the beginning."

* * *

_**From the author: **_I make no apologies for Axton and his wanton ways. If this type and level of description makes you uncomfortable, best to leave the story now.

**_Next: Near Miss.  
_**


	5. Near Miss

_The story so far: Axton decided to make a go of it with new partner, Hal. What could possibly go wrong?  
_

**Chapter 4: Near Miss**

Their real first job together didn't go quite so smoothly as the one at the brothel...

"Shit! He's made us."

"I'm on him-"

"Stay there," Axton ordered, but their runner was already kicking up dust in a chase after the powerbike.

The bloom of pluming dirt and debris in their wake made targeting pointless, and Axton slung his rifle up with a curse as he bolted for the ladder. Nearly a week of tracking this skip to this old ghost town, and Hal was going to blow it because he couldn't keep it in his pants.

By the time Axton made it from the roof to the street below, the billowing dust had changed direction, back through town. The powerbike could maneuver, but the runner had speed; there was no way Razorback could outrun them in open terrain. In a narrow town street, though...

"He's circling back," Hal said in his ear.

"I see him," Axton said, planting his feet in the dirt. He exchanged the rifle for the scattergun, bringing it to bear on the approaching biker.

Maybe Razorback snickered or grinned to himself under his spiked helmet – Axton liked to think so – but he sure didn't laugh when the scattergun spit a coning spray of buckshot. Three balls spattered the bike's chassis, but the second shot blew Razorback out from his seat.

The bike fell to its side, coming to a skidding stop not far from Axton's feet. He stepped over it, reloading the gun with a forceful pump, and strode toward Razorback, his barrels still trained on the motionless punk.

The runner curved to a stop and Hal jumped out, crossing to their quarry. "You get him?" he asked, crouching down to look.

"Hal-!" Axton warned, when the killer lunged up from playing possum.

Wrapping one arm around Hal's neck, Razorback pressed the big serrated blades on his armband to the engineer's temple, snarling, "Drop your gun, and maybe I won't skewer this pretty boy's brains."

The scattergun landed in the dirt with a dull thud. At Razorback's prompting for the rifle, too, Axton dropped the other gun from his shoulder and snarled back. "You won't get away."

Shimmying up with Hal, the killer sneered. "I ain't goin' back to prison!"

Taking a quick assessment of threat and possibilities, Axton made his choice.

"You're right," he said. "You're not." And Razorback sniffed a mocking snicker, but that was all before a bullet from the revolver Axton swiped from the back of his belt made the killer's head jerk with a splatter of fresh blood.

Scrambling out from Razorback's loosened choke-hold, Hal let out a wheeze. "Oh, God. You shot him...!"

"Yeah, well," Axton muttered, thumb ready on the hammer of the Jakobs as he walked up to Razorback, holding his sight steady. A clean shot, nearly dead-on through the left eye; the intact right one stared up lifelessly. "That's the game." Returning the revolver to its holster, he turned to Hal, extending one hand. "Now, on your feet, soldier."

"Thanks," Hal said, as he pulled himself up.

"You know how you can thank me?" Axton said, and frowned. "Quit being a dumbass."

Hal blinked. "What-?"

"When I tell you to stay put, you _stay put_."

"Ax-"

"Don't 'Ax' me," Axton told him in a growl, silently cursing the nickname's easygoing familiarity. "You do something stupid like that again, I'll shoot _you_."

"He was rabbiting-"

"I had him! If you hadn't taken off like some cocky teenager, I could've picked him off, no trouble. What the hell ya think these telescopic sights are for?" Axton said, and picked up his rifle with a furious rattle. He shook his head and turned, stooping to collect the other gun. And, from behind, he heard Hal mutter:

"I'm sorry."

"I need to know I can count on you," Axton said, scowling as he reset the shotgun's safety. "Out here, it's both our asses."

"I said, I was sorry," Hal repeated. "It won't happen again."

Unable yet to release the angry pinch of his face, Axton turned around again, barking, "You know, you're lucky that shitbird used blades instead o' guns, or you'd be dead right now."

"Okay, I get it," Hal said, matching his frustrated ire with a snarl. "What more do you want from me?"

Seeing that flashing in the younger man's eyes, Axton let his posture droop with a sigh.

"I want you to be careful," he said, fully aware of the irony of that statement coming from his own mouth but unwilling to dwell on it overlong. Slinging both rifle and scattergun over his shoulder with a clatter, he sighed again. "And, if you really have to get in the shit, send out that autocannon first, for God's sake."

"Who's the partner, here?" Hal asked, fixing him with a measuring stare. "Me, or the drehlafette?"

"Far as I'm concerned, you're a package deal."

The answer didn't impress Hal, who blew a faint, disgruntled sniff.

"We're a team," Axton murmured, to appease. "But I been doin' this a lot longer'n you, so you gotta listen to me." He smiled, softly, in a more coercive effort to soothe the engineer's miff. "I just wanna keep you alive, darlin," he said...and felt his mouth pucker a beat too late.

Hal's expression went from stung to curious in less than a blink. He stayed silent, though, leaving Axton to stutter stupidly in the awkward pause:

"Uh. W-Why'd I say that?"

Now, Hal's lips twitched in amusement. "If you don't know, how should I?"

"Yeah," Axton said, stepping away and dropping his focus to his boots. "I didn't-! I don't know what that was."

"You certain?" Hal asked, chuckling gently.

"Yeah," Axton said again, nodding furiously at his feet. "Yeah, let's just- let's just get this skip back to Autochthe."

"Okay," Hal said, still chuckling as he wandered back to the runner.

Lifting his gaze at last, Axton watched him go.

For a gearhead, Hal was built. Not with any impressive bulk, but muscly enough to take some damage. Maybe he wasn't giving the engineer enough credit. They were supposed to be partners, after all, and if they were going to make it out here in the border worlds, they'd both need to be able to stand up in a fight. He'd just need to train that ass a bit more...

Realizing of a sudden he was looking at Hal's ass, Axton shook his head and turned instead to Razorback, to rifle through his pockets while Hal hooked up the powerbike for a tow. All he found were some meager cash reserves – less than a thousand – and a few curious data clips marked in red, that he made mental note to examine more closely later.

They climbed back into the runner, Razorback's body secured in the boot. Hal stayed quiet, without initiating any conversation as he drove. Axton was grateful, since his thoughts were loud enough all on their own.

Why in hell had he said that? He hadn't called anyone "darlin'" since...well, since never. Sarah had condemned the use of any term of endearment, tender or otherwise. Too much obvious fraternization among troopers wasn't good for dividing lines of authority, even after everyone in the platoon knew they were fucking. Of course, she hadn't had much of a sense of humor about anything. After scoffing at his use of the term "sweetheart," he'd teased, "_How about I just call you 'tits?'_" In answer, she'd punched him in the face so hard, he'd had to make up an excuse of a barroom brawl to keep his soldierly dignity intact with the rest of the squad.

Squinting against the wind, he glanced at Hal, whose focus stayed steady on the road. Nothing odd about his profile, though: no smirk or snigger, nor blush or cringe of disgust. He just drove, as though nothing had happened. Which, now that Axton really considered it, nothing had. Not really, save for an inexplicable slip of the tongue. So, turning his attention back to the desolate road ahead, as well, Axton decided to forget the gaffe.

Back in Autochthe, Hal took the powerbike to the scrapyard for parts money, while Axton collected the reward for Razorback, less eight grand for the damage to the body and face.

"You can still tell who he is," Axton argued, and to which Sheriff Quay grudgingly handed over the remainder of their reward.

"Next time," the sheriff warned, "don't aim for the face."

Axton smirked. "Ugly mug like that, I think he looks better that way."

"Wiseass bounty hunters," Quay muttered through his bushy beard. "It comes around for all o' ya, one day, y'know. Less'n two days ago, my deputy tells me, this idiot was spotted checkin' out some skips for himself."

"Was he, now?" Axton asked lowly, as his fingertips felt the hard edges of the data clips in his pocket.

He got back to the converted store room at the brothel a half-hour later, feeling smug with himself. Hal, though, thumbing his way through the smaller-than-expected stack of cash, looked and sounded worried.

"This barely covers our expenses, let alone gets us off-world."

Axton frowned. "What expenses?"

"The runner, for one. Not to mention, the shotgun, shells, grenades – which I told you we wouldn't need-"

"Hey, always be prepared."

Hal signified he wasn't willing to argue the subject with a wave, and sighed. "Regardless, we're going to need another job."

"Already done," Axton said proudly.

Hal blinked at him. "That was quick."

Axton shrugged. "What can I say? Galaxy's full of bastards. Or, in this case, bitches," he added, as he tossed the engineer a wanted poster, as well as the data clips from Razorback's pocket.

"Red Widow," Hal said as he perused the poster. Looking up, the blue of his eyes almost disappeared among the whites. "One million?"

"Richest of the lot," Axton confirmed. "And hot off the 'net."

Hal chuckled, wryly. "Well, now, all we need to do is find her."

"Already done that, too," Axton said, doubly proud. "She's here. On Andromeda."

This time, Hal was a bit more dubious. "And how'd you figure that out?"

"I didn't." Axton nodded to the data clips. "But our buddy Razorback did." At Hal's curious blink, he snickered. "Idiot didn't even bother to encrypt his data. I pulled it right off, no problem."

Another chuckle, this one pleased. "Oh, I'll make a tech out of you, yet."

Axton grinned wider, so wide with pride, now, it started to hurt. "So. You ready to track this bitch down and make ourselves a million bucks?"

Tossing the data clips in his hand, Hal grinned back. "You bet I am...darlin'."

Axton heard his own laugh, even as he glanced away. "Aw, shut up."

* * *

**_Next: Come Get Some.  
_**


	6. Come Get Some

_The story so far: With one successful job in their back pockets, our bounty hunters decide to go after a bigger prize: the murderous and mysterious Red Widow. But, first, a bit of target practice...  
_

**Chapter 5: Come Get Some**

"The _Princess Eve_," Hal said, focus fixed on the scrolling details on his datapad. "Twenty-four hundred passengers, plus almost five hundred crew." He sniffed, glancing over at Axton. "Not exactly an empty street."

"We'll just have to be careful," Axton told him. "Think you can handle that?" he added, subtly mocking.

"I'll keep the drehlafette on safety," Hal replied with a faint sneer. He dropped the contempt a moment later, though, waving one hand at the screen. "What makes you so sure Red Widow's going to be on this one, though? There's dozens – probably hundreds! – of ships leaving Andromeda, this week alone."

Axton shook his head. "Razorback tracked her to Aletheia, and that ship's the richest one."

Hal scoffed. "So, now, we're trusting Razorback's judgment? You do recall how he tried to kill us?"

"He was a bush league bandit cocksucker," Axton said, and Hal frowned. "But, his notes make sense. The dame buried five husbands. That's not bad luck; it's premeditation." He shook his head again. "Nah. A taste for money like she's got? The most expensive ship is the only one worth her time. And that's the _Princess Eve,_" he said, tapping one finger upon the screen.

"So, how do we get aboard?" Hal asked, looking up at him. "The Widow might be able to afford passage, but we certainly can't."

"We'll figure that out later," Axton said, and straightened up, clenching then relaxing the muscles in his back. He patted Hal on the shoulder. "Right now, we got somethin' else to take care of," he said, and strode away from their parked runner, to a clear patch of grass.

They'd driven out past Autochthe's limits to the deserted plainlands, to make plans in private. The notion seemed hilarious, at first: privacy in open air. But the brothel was subject to snooping eyes and ears, the same as every other establishment in town. Plus, Autochthe's rules against personal ordnance didn't exactly coincide with the needs of two skiptracers.

Weaponry wasn't on Axton's mind at the moment, though. Noticing Hal hadn't followed, he waved his arm and called, "Come on, get yer nose outta that geek stuff and get over here. This is important."

Axton didn't hear it, but he saw Hal sigh, shoulders sloping as he pushed himself up. Laying the datapad in the runner, the engineer did as told, coming to stand an arm's length away. "What?"

Axton shifted his feet in the dirt, boots grinding almost soundlessly against the earth as he eased into a combat stance. "Come at me, bro."

Hal squinted at him. "What?" he said again.

"I don't want another situation like Razorback. I wanna know you can take care o' yourself, if it comes down to it."

"I had CQC at basic," Hal started wearily, when Axton shut him up with a snapping jab to the nose.

Mouth agape, Hal stared back at him as his hand went to his face. Still wide-eyed, he glanced at the trickle of blood staining his fingertips. He shot Axton a snarl. "What the fuck was that?"

"That," Axton said, showing off his curled fingers, "was my fist, hitting your face."

"Yeah, but what the hell for?"

"You've been in a lab too long, kid. And, in case you hadn't noticed, this ain't a controlled environment, out here. Out here, you're in the shit. And, when you're in the shit, you better know how to fight. Or you're dead."

"I know that," Hal said, his blue eyes going narrow. "You don't have to keep reminding me; I'm not an idiot."

Axton felt the twitch of a smirk at Hal's brimming anger. "Okay, then," he said, settling into his stance once more. "Show me what you got."

Blowing a rough snort, Hal moved into a basic boxing stance, fists raised in front of his face. One foot shifted back, a balance leg, as he started a slow, subtle bob.

Axton gave a beleaguered groan. "We gonna dance, or we gonna fight- oh!" he said, leaning out the way of Hal's fist. "Puppy's got fangs!" He snickered. "Itty bitty ones, but they're there."

Hal stayed silent, the bridge of his nose pinching above his knuckles. He mumbled something behind his hands – Axton thought he heard, "I'll show you fangs," – and lunged, throwing a long punch straight from his shoulder.

Axton grabbed his wrist, tossing him to the ground with a thud. Swinging one leg over the engineer, he sat down on his hips, sucking two tsk-ing breaths between his teeth.

"Sloppy," Axton told him, shaking his head. "Slow." He tapped Hal between his brows. "I expect more out of a partner."

That angry tint to Hal's eyes was still there. "I'm just warming up," he muttered, lips pursed thin.

"You think a Razorback's gonna wait for you to get warmed up?" Axton scolded. He couldn't help it, though. Smart, quick, and ready to learn, Hal showed a lot of promise. Axton liked that. He just didn't want to see him hurt.

That esteem apparently didn't show through.

"I told you, that wouldn't happen again," Hal said. He gave a rough buck of his hips, bouncing Axton into a bridge position. Hooking his arm around him, he flipped Axton over onto his back, reversing the mount.

"And, it won't," Hal finished, a faint smirk rounding one cheek as he looked down at him.

Caught off-guard for only a second, Axton let out a sudden laugh. "Not bad. Not graceful, but not bad." He smiled back. "Now, let me up. I wanna see what else you got."

Pushing himself up from his knees, Hal offered Axton a hand. The leverage was firm, and Axton pulled himself up, too. Falling back again, he threw Hal over him with his leg.

Landing hard on the grass, Hal grimaced. "I should have known that would happen," he muttered, while Axton laughed again.

This rough practice went back-and-forth for another few rounds. The good news was that Hal did indeed seem simply rusty, to start. But, with some serious-minded sweating and effort, his strikes came faster, harder, more precise. He even landed a few strong hits. The bad news was that he wasn't fast, hard, or precise _enough_. Not to take down a skip on his own, hand-to-hand. And, he certainly wasn't good enough to take down Axton.

Especially not when Axton pulled his gun.

Hal had managed to sweep Axton's legs out from under him, pouncing for another full mount before coming nose-to-nose with the long-barreled Jakobs revolver.

"How, now?" Axton challenged. He didn't cock the hammer, but it still shocked Hal to freezing.

After a second, the terror faded from the engineer's eyes, and he scowled. "That's not fair."

"You're in the shit, remember? No referees out here in the shit. You need to take me out before we get to this situation."

Hal gave a helpless little shrug. "So, what do I do, this time?"

"Oh, you don't do anything, this time," Axton told him with a quick shake his head. "This time, you're dead."

Hal said nothing, just slumped in defeat.

Seeing that look of dejection, Axton chuckled and swung the pistol away. "I take it back." He tucked the Jakobs into its holster and snickered. "This time, you just have to pack us up for Aletheia, while I get myself some pussy and a bath."

Hal rolled his eyes but gave no extra reproach. A good thing, since chidings tended to ruin Axton's enjoyment of both luxurious girls and languorous baths.

Not that it mattered, in the end. His whore had given a decent showing, but she hadn't excited. Axton got more stimulation washing himself afterward, as he'd rewound in his head the day's fights, and the full-blooded rush of letting loose with somebody again.

He must have really missed the action, if just thinking about those sparring bouts gave him a semi. He didn't bother to get himself off, though; the sensation of brimming arousal was too nice to let go so soon. It pumped him full of energy, a welcome preparation for the long ride to the port city on the other side of the sector.

Hal wanted to say goodbye to Cin, so Axton let him do, watching them talk in low tones from the side mirror of the runner. A brief pause when Hal slung his ruck over his shoulder. He stepped close to her, and Axton sniffed to himself. If Hal had wanted a quickie, he should've said something earlier.

But the engineer only put his arms around the woman, in an oddly familial gesture for a madame who'd sucked him off a little over a week ago. And one over which Axton questioned him when they were both sitting in the runner and pulled out of Autochthe:

"What was that about?"

"What?" Hal said, without looking.

"You and Cin," Axton said. "You sweet on her or somethin'?"

"I just wanted to thank her." He turned to face him a moment. "I left her the guns from the Razorback job."

Axton sat up in his seat. "You did what?" He reached for his Jakobs; the touch of the familiar wooden stock under his fingers made his breath come again.

"We won't be able to get on that cruise ship carrying ordnance," Hal reasoned. "And, we can always get new ones." He faced the road again, squinting even though they were driving away from the dusk horizon, and added in a low voice, "She helped me. She helped us. She needs those guns more than we do."

Narrowing his eyes the same, Axton studied his profile, all sharp outlines and smooth curves, hair swaying in the rush of wind. Unsoured. Impressionable. Young. So young, it made him feel wounded and blessed at the same time.

He snickered at the dichotomy, reaching out to ruffle his hand in the engineer's hair. "You're a real softie," he said. "Aren't you, boyo?"

Keeping his focus on the road, Hal cringed away. "Don't call me boyo," he muttered, and gunned the engine to a steady rumble for speed.

Axton eased back into his seat again, laughing in the wind.

* * *

**_Next: Knot.  
_**


	7. Knot

_The story so far: Fresh out of Autochthe, Axton and Hal made their way to Aletheia, to hunt down their next rich skip: Red Widow...  
_

**Chapter ****6****: ****Knot**

"There she is," Hal said, indicating the ship with a shallow nod.

Five hundred meters long and shaped like a garishly decorated metallic whale, the moored luxury cruiser _Princess Eve_ loomed over the Aletheian dock. Over Axton and Hal, too, crouched at their observation perch behind the stowage loading barricades, from where they watched the queue of passengers shuffle into her hull like worker insects on a march. And, at the top of the launch, the porters in goofy outfits checking passes for everyone.

Those porters were what made Axton's brow furrow most, despite his next question: "Remind me what Security's like, again?"

"A joke," Hal said, sniffing. "Less than a platoon's worth of militia has-beens or never-wases."

"Rent-a-cops," Axton guessed.

"Yeah," Hal confirmed. "So, nothing to worry over, once we're aboard." He blew a quick sigh through his teeth. "The problem's getting there."

Axton silently agreed, turning about to scan the promenade of ready travelers. A geriatric couple in vacation clothes, a quartet of chatty tarts in skimpy dresses, a mom and dad with their fidgety progeny of three in tow.

"We could try to make our way as crew," Hal offered, when Axton suddenly spied a pair of posh gents – both about the right size, with travel cases trailing behind them and in expensive-looking suits, to boot – stepping along the walk toward the _Princess Eve_.

"I got a better idea," Axton said, jerking his head toward the dupes. Easing from their hiding place, he quick-timed his stride to catch up to the unsuspecting pair, with Hal trotting at his side.

They paced the two men until they came to a sizable niche between some supply crates due for freight. Axton signaled to Hal to the one on the left, while he cleared his throat for the one on the right, speaking in his most polite voice, "Excuse me, sir?"

The fancy man turned, and Axton punched him dead-on in the face. Glassjaw fell to the dock without a fight, leaving Axton to snicker. "That was easy."

"Little help?" Hal growled, from where he was struggling to choke out the second traveler.

"Seriously?" Axton said, pained. Another sucker-punch took down the second gent, and Axton shook his head at Hal. "Quit worryin' so much about your precious hands. They're good for more'n just tinkering in machinery, you know."

Hal pulled a face. "I do a lot more than 'just tinker,'" he said, the inherent annoyance in his tone sounding suspiciously like Sarah.

"Yeah, yeah," Axton muttered in reply, as he started to go through the first gent's pockets. "You're a genius." Pulling out the traveler's pass, he glanced at it, and began to tug at the man's jacket. "Gimme a hand, here, will ya?"

Hal didn't move. "We're already stealing their passes. We're taking their clothes, now, too?"

Looking up at him, Axton smirked in challenge. "Squeamish?"

"No." Hal sniffed. "It's just so undignified."

Axton shot him a lopsided grin, as he waggled the ticket in the air. "Well, we can't go First Class in these rags."

Hal blinked. "First Class?" He dropped to Axton's side, pulling off the traveler's shoes with a grin of his own. "Why didn't you say so? One percent, here we come!"

They left the unlucky saps with a littering of clothes pulled from the luggage in favor of their more conspicuous gear – the drehlafette, of course, and Hal's prized set of tools – as well as their own work clothes. Axton made certain to keep his Jakobs with him, though, tucked tight into his back holster.

Hal glanced pointedly at the jut of the revolver, muttering, "That does nothing for your arse."

Shifting his big shoulders in the tight-fitting suit jacket, Axton blew a sharp snort. "Nobody's gonna be lookin' at my ass."

"You sure about that?"

At Hal's teasing smirk, Axton just sneered. He grabbed the larger case and jerked his head toward the queue. "Let's go."

They met no resistance or questioning at embarkation, not even a second glance's worth. Their cabin assignment, though, made the blood drain from Axton's face:

"The Honeymoon Suite!" their luggage porter announced as he opened the door. He eyed them both with an overly-friendly, nearly salacious smile. "Congratulations."

"The Honeymoon Suite?" Hal echoed, sweeping close with an exaggerated grin. "Darling, I had no idea."

"Neither did I," Axton muttered darkly, feeling his muscles clench as he looked around the room, with its glass-enclosed shower, matching dressing gowns draped over the loveseat, and double-wide bed spread with rose petals. There were even little candles glowing from one table beside, and, on the other, some rubbers – _rubbers_, for God's sake! – arranged in dubious display around a chilling wine bucket.

Exchanging their cardkeys for his tip, the porter shot Axton another smarmy leer. He closed the door after him, though not before parting with, "Enjoy your stay!"

While Hal hopped onto the bed, flopping his long arms and legs into a spreadeagle position, Axton could only glower. "I don't believe this."

"Don't be so grim," Hal scolded amid a flutter of displaced flower petals. He rolled onto one side, cocking his cheek on his fist, and smiled, gleefully. "Now, get your ass over here," he said in a mocking drawl, "and let's get this honeymoon started!"

Unmoving, Axton fixed him with a glare. "You're loving this, aren't you?"

"Never say no to free," Hal advised, once more in his regular voice. "I mean, come feel this!" He ran his hand over the fold of sheet near the pillow. "This is authentic gossypian weave. And, look," he said, as he slid toward the wine bucket, pulling the bottle from the ice with a shift of cubes. "A real Glera Brut, not that prosthecco shit you usually find. We need to drink this," he declared, and glanced about like a prairie dog popping its head from its burrow. "You see a bottle opener anywheres-"

"This is not a real honeymoon!" Axton seethed, and Hal stopped, suddenly, blinking at him.

After a moment, the engineer lowered the bottle back into the crinkling ice and eased up from the bed. "I was just having a laugh," he said. "We deserve a break, yeah? After everything we've been through?"

Axton drew a noisy drag of air through his nostrils, trying to unwind the tightening knot in his belly. He managed it, a bit, though the equally tight clench at the base of his spine was more resilient to these efforts.

"Let's just do the job," he said, letting go his breath as a more mellowed sigh. "The sooner we find Widow, the sooner she's in custody. And the sooner we get our reward," he added pointedly.

Hal nodded, straightening up with an easygoing breath. "Fair enough."

Leaving their gear behind, they headed from their stateroom to the recreational decks, the most open and inconspicuous place to do some intelligence gathering. Hal had walked calmly beside him from their suite, but, standing with Axton in the cruiser's passenger lift, he started to fidget, as though suddenly uncomfortable in his pants.

"How do you feel about women?" he asked, the pitch of his voice low but curious.

"You mean to fuck?" Axton said, distracted by the too-tight fit of his own trousers; he'd have to find another pair that suit him better, if this hunt turned out to be a long one. "Or, just in general?"

"Both, I suppose," Hal said, and shrugged.

Axton did the same. "I dunno. Some of 'em are all right." He tried shifting himself to one side, adding, "Some are cunts, though."

"Yeah," Hal agreed half-heartedly. "But, you could say that about any species."

Looking up, Axton paused. The engineer was pretty bad at guiding a conversation – typical geek gearhead – but he could guess what had prompted this topic, all the same.

"Look," he said, grateful they were alone in the lift for where this discussion needed to go. "Just 'cause Widow's a dame don't mean she ain't dangerous. She's a skip, like any other. Think of her as Razorback with tits, if that makes it easier. But don't underestimate her because she ain't got a dick," he said, feeling his lip curl in a faint snarl. "She'll kill you or me without blinkin' twice." He did, though, before fixing Hal with a stern stare. "Got it?"

The engineer gave no argument, thankfully, because the lift doors opened just then, onto a casino busy with blinking lights and chattering noises. Beyond that, Axton spied a bar already bustling with patrons, and a sign overhead directing passengers left to POOL and right to BALLROOM.

Stepping from the lift, Axton leaned his head close to Hal, murmuring in an aside, "We'll cover more territory if we split up. Keep your eyes and ears open, but don't make any moves without me. We'll meet back here in two hours."

Gazing out over the whirring machines, Hal gave a half-nod of distraction.

"Hey," Axton said, grabbing him by the arm to make their eyes meet. "I'm serious: do _not_ engage her."

"Don't worry," Hal replied, easing his arm free. He grinned. "I'm already married to you, remember?" he quipped, and stepped away.

Watching as the engineer wandered off through the maze of betting tables and slot machines, Axton blew a quiet snort and muttered, "Smartass." Turning on his heel, he sauntered his own way toward the bar.

He whittled away the first hour with three nursed ales and twice as many flirtatious conversations that went nowhere: one woman too young, two too old, and three who likely didn't know how to spell their own names, they were so dense. Had this been a pleasure cruise for him, too, he probably could have convinced one of them to come back to the stateroom to wile away the afternoon. But this was a hunt, and – as much as it might have tempted – he didn't need the distraction of sex.

At least, not until after Widow was in custody.

Downing the last swig of his last ale that tasted more like his own spit than anything, he migrated from the bar to the ballroom. But nothing going on there, not until that evening, when the _Princess Eve_ would have its Welcome Aboard Dance.

"Shit," Axton mumbled to himself in weary defeat.

He was about ready to go looking for Hal, see if maybe they could scare up some action together, when he turned around and saw the engineer standing not fifty meters away. He wasn't alone, either. A waifish blonde in a tight little gold-and-red dress and matching stiletto heels was chatting him up. She laid her hand on his arm, red fingernails drifting over his sleeve, and smiled, her crimson lips shining and stunning.

She hadn't had that smile on her wanted poster, but this was definitely Widow, come cruising on a hunt of her own, from the looks of it.

Just like the fist at his side, Axton felt the knot at the base of his spine clench tighter. "Shit."

* * *

**_Next: Ape.  
_**


	8. Ape

_The story so far: Tracking Red Widow to the luxury cruise liner _Princess Eve_, our hunters have been met with one surprise after another...  
_

**Chapter ****7****: ****Ape**

As soon as that murderous she-bitch had stepped away – to powder her nose or her cunt or whatever – Axton stalked up to Hal, grabbed him by the arm, and hustled him into the casino, between two noisy one-armed bandits. "What the fuck was that?" he hissed.

"What?" Hal asked, expression smooth with innocence.

Axton shook his arm. "What did I say about not engaging her?"

"I didn't-"

"This was supposed to be a recon walkout. You tryin' to get yourself skewered?"

"I didn't engage her," Hal said, quickly and sternly, making Axton shut up a second. In the short silence, he pulled his arm free and relaxed some, to explain, "She came up to me." He smiled, annoyingly smug. "Bought me a drink and said I looked like I could use some company."

Axton blew a derisive sniff. That was the sort of move company soldiers used on colonist bumpkins for an easy lay. "And you fell for that?"

"No," Hal said, rolling his eyes. Grinning, he added, "But, I did get a ticket to dance."

"Huh?"

"The ball tonight?" Hal cued with a leading tweak of his brows.

"Oh," Axton said, relaxing the stiffness of his shoulders. "That shit."

"Yeah, that shit," Hal repeated with another quick eye-roll.

Axton hummed, muttering between his teeth, "I dunno. It'll be awfully crowded."

"So you know she won't try anything." Noticing Axton's dubious expression, Hal pressed, "At least, this way, one of us can stay close to her. And, nothing like a tango to get a lady's guard down," he added, leaning close with another grin that Axton didn't like at all.

"Maybe we should find you some matching rings," he said sourly.

Hal ignored the admittedly pettish jibe, instead moving out from between the slot machines toward the lift. "What we really need are some new suits."

"Suits?" Axton said as he followed. "For what?"

Turning on his heel, Hal shot him a look of disdain. "For what?" he echoed, incredulous, and opened his arms. "We need to make an impression! We show up in these, she's going to think we're skint."

"We are skint," Axton argued. "Or, have you forgotten the whole reason we're on this hunt?"

"I haven't forgotten," Hal said, turning about again. "But don't you know you need to spend money to make money? Now, come on," he said, lifting one hand to wave toward the lift. "Let's find something that'll fit you proper."

That, Axton couldn't debate; his borrowed trousers were starting to chafe. Luckily, Hal was as good at stealing clothes as he was at appropriating proprietary tech. Less than two hours later, Axton found himself in a form-fitting, single-breasted suit, looking in the mirror of their cabin while trying – unsuccessfully – to tie his bowtie.

Looking over Axton's shoulder, Hal met his gaze in the mirror and hummed from behind a smile. "You clean up nice."

Uncertain whether he was being facetious or serious, Axton was left only to snicker under his breath. It was short-lived, though, as the mystery of the bowtie flummoxed him once more.

"I hate this shit," he muttered, reminded suddenly of another suit, another reflection in another full-length mirror, and another time he'd felt so completely out of his league. While Sarah had clucked and smiled, calling him _debonair_ in his mess dress, all he'd really wanted at the time was to run off with his not-so-blushing bride and fuck their way to eternity. No such luck; she'd married him that afternoon. The rest was history, in more ways than one.

Hal tsked. "Here," he said, reaching around Axton's shoulders to take care of winding the tie. "Didn't you learn anything from being married?"

Snorting, Axton lifted his chin. "She wasn't that kinda woman."

"Pity," was all Hal said, close to his ear there as he gave a final tug on the bow.

Axton paused to look at his own reflection: big-shouldered, heavy brow, scarred chin from a wicked close quarters fight on Leda. Pulling his thin lips together in a frown, he decided, "I look like a gorilla in this thing."

From within the silver, mirror-Hal chuckled. "No, you don't!" Those clear blue eyes almost shone. "You look dashing."

Axton glanced sidelong at him, making sure to keep said dashing reflection in his peripheral vision. "Ya think?"

"A perfect mark for our lady killer," Hal agreed. He patted Axton on one wide shoulder and stepped away. "Now, what about me?" he asked, lifting his arms.

With his hair slicked back and standing tall in that jet black suit that fit him like a sheath, Hal looked a lot less conspicuous than Axton felt, and a lot classier than any ex-Army geek should have had any right to be. To his surprise, though, Axton felt neither envy nor contempt for this fact. Instead, he gave the best compliment he could think of:

"Debonair," he said, letting the word roll from his tongue with a drawling smile.

Hal dropped his gaze away but grinned all the same. When he raised his head again, Axton recognized a faint burn darkening the engineer's normal pallor, one he'd failed to notice before, possibly from all that time spent tracking Razorback out in the open.

"We ready for this?" Hal asked.

"One last thing." Grabbing his trusty revolver, Axton slipped it into his back holster. He fixed the drape of his jacket and turned, to glance over his shoulder with a smirk. "How's my ass?"

Hal grinned again. "No complaints, here."

Axton nodded. "All right, then. Let's find our bad girl and give her the spanking she deserves."

Decked in their expensive undercover getups, they swept from their decorated cabin up to the even more decorated and brightly-lit ballroom. There, a similarly-costumed parade of singles and couples alike changed positions on the dance floor and at the tables arranged around the outskirts of the busy room.

They split up at the main entrance, where Axton took silent stock of their surroundings: the points of exit and how much each of them would or wouldn't raise levels of suspicion, the flow of the staff, how drunk or dizzy the crowd of guests. They couldn't risk a firefight in this mess, but maybe little Red Riding Ho would do them a favor and make their job easy-

"Speak o' the devil," Axton murmured to himself, as the crowd parted, seemingly all on its own, to let that pretty filly click-clack her way across the dance floor in her tight scarlet dress and matching heels. With a dip of his chin, he started to line himself into position with Hal, when he looked at her – really _looked_ at her – and stopped.

He'd gotten a glimpse of her before, but that glimpse hadn't done her justice. Wavy blonde hair, skin like a perfect porcelain doll, piercing emerald eyes and luscious red lips. She was small but built like a brick shithouse, with tits and legs to make any soldier go weak in the knees...and jump to attention in his pants. And her smell-! Even from here, it pricked at his nostrils: an intoxicating, aromatic mix of a perfume, of cigarillo smoke, strawberry wine, and the promise of wanton sex.

He saw Hal sidle his way through the crowd, and Widow's smile turned wider. She swayed toward him, the slit of her dress swishing open nearly all the way to the top of her pale thigh. She reached out, her hand touching his as they met on the dance floor. There, she seemed to caress him, with an over-and-around slip of fingertips that was as much seduction as it was greeting.

Watching Hal take Widow's hand and pull her close enough to change the shine of light on his lapels and shift the depth of her cleavage, Axton felt the blood in his temples throb. It beat its way all the way down to his groin, where a rush of desire made his dick go hard. It also made something bright flare behind his eyes, dulling his senses a moment so he didn't even notice when he took one step, then another, then a third onto the floor, toward the sashaying couple. Until he saw his own hand go for Widow's slender arm, pulling her from Hal's embrace to face him.

Her green eyes went wide with some surprise, but only for a second. She smiled, ruby lips tweaking in a perfect tease. "Oh," she said, her voice a melodious, entrancing purr. "Cutting in, are we?"

In the human, hunter part of his brain, Axton knew it was stupid, careless, and against the plan...but the ape in him wouldn't let him let this woman go. Not until he'd had her, and to hell with anyone who got in his way.

"Excuse me," Hal started, playing his part of the proper gentleman.

But Axton just transferred Widow to his left hand as he balled his right into a fist. He swung, a swift cross to Hal's jaw that sent him to the floor.

As Hal stared up at him, Axton wanted to say he was sorry, he didn't know why he'd done that. But the primitive in him yanked Widow to his side, muttering, "Let's go."

She smiled, winningly and red. "Lead the way, handsome."

With another yank, Axton turned and headed for the main doors. But some urging in his gut made him glance back toward Hal, rising from the floor, at last, looking befuddled and alarmed. And, meeting Hal's gaze, Axton felt a catch of breath from his gut.

_Help me_, he thought, when a waft of breeze from the opening doors made his nostrils tickle once more with the scent of smoke and lust, and he hustled Widow out from under the glaring lights.

* * *

**_Next: What Lay Beneath.  
_**


	9. What Lay Beneath

_The story so far: Red Widow joined the dance, Hal got a fist to the face (again), and Axton... What the hell's up with Axton?__  
_

**Chapter ****8: What Lay Beneath**

She tasted the same as she smelled: rich, smoky, tart. Her lips, anyway; Axton hadn't yet gotten a taste of anything else. Though, in the quiet, close quarters of the corridor outside the First Class berths, he reached under her dress, fingers sliding over the warmth of her inner thigh, on the way to the flush heat between her legs.

Exotic like a Nysian whore and refined like an Apollonian lady, it was no wonder she made him hard, but why he couldn't even think straight around her...! She was a skip, a target, yet every snort of her perfumed skin – from behind her ear where he nuzzled his nose to the curve of her neck where he dragged his mouth – clouded his brain with a constant prodding mantra of _want, fuck, __mine__, obey_.

The rational side of him struggled up out of their kiss. "What're you doin' t' me?" He barely got the words out, tongue thick like with an allergic shock.

Winding her hand around his wrist, she guided it against her most delicate flesh with a purr. "I think the question is, what do you want to do to me?"

-_want_-

Axton closed his eyes with a forceful blink. "I-"

"Or, maybe that should be," she said, her voice turning to a breathy hum, "what do you want to do _for_ me?"

He wanted to stop listening, stop breathing, just so he could think again. But the reverb of her giggle beat down and deep along the canal of his ear like the pulse of a slithering snake, and her slit beckoned his fingers: warm, soft, wet.

He forced his eyes open again with a long drag of air. The scent of her filled his sinuses, his head, his lungs.

"I- I want-"

-_fuck_-

He wanted her, wanted to shove her up against the wall and tear off her clothes and fuck her right there in the corridor, show her what kind of man he was, the kind of man to make her scream and come over and over again the way Sarah never could because Sarah always needed to be on top, in control, in command-

He swallowed, hard.

She wasn't Sarah. She was a job. He and Hal were in this together. Hal. Where the fuck was Hal?

"You're the Widow," Axton managed to garble, at last.

The woman's green gaze went wide. "You knew Maximus?" she asked, sounding intrigued. But then, she smiled again. Cunning, slick. Predatory. "Or, maybe, you're talking about Atherton," she went on, her fingers curling hard around his wrist. "Or Calder. Or...oh, what was his name again?" She laughed, neither charming nor funny. "There have been so many, I can barely remember them all. But they always remember me," she added, her hand like a vise.

The pain around his wrist brought Axton a second of confident clarity. "You're wanted."

"You're right." Raising her chin to show her neck, Widow grinned and laid her other hand upon her chest, stroking her fingers down the tempting curve of one breast to the chromatic pendant nestled in her cleavage. "I am."

Following the trail of her hand, he stared at her necklace, a trickle of sweat stinging his eye.

-_mine_-

"I'm Elsbeth, by the way. Now, what should I call you?"

"Axton!"

Widow turned, her hair swishing against Axton's cheek. Swaying his focus up from her cleavage, he looked, too, to where Hal was standing halfway down the corridor.

"Axton," Widow echoed. "Very macho." She smirked. "How appropriate."

"Don't listen to her," Hal warned.

Axton did his damnedest to muscle up some resolve, to keep his head clear. But Widow let go of his hand, and, even at arm's length, the smell from his fingers made his mind reel.

-_**obey**_-

She tilted her mouth to his ear, her words winding around his brain like sticky spider's silk: "Get rid of him."

Turning, Axton lurched toward Hal.

"She's controlling you," Hal said, sliding back. "But you can fight her-"

"Get out," Axton rumbled. He took another step, fingers curling into a fist he fought to keep at his side. _Don't go for the gun_, he thought. _Don't go for the gun_-

Hal raised his hands. "Axton-"

"Get out," Axton sputtered again. Around the throb of blood in his ears, he heard his knuckles strain. And Widow, her command doubly pounding:

"Axton."

"_Get out_!" he shouted, and lunged, fist first.

Hal sidestepped, just in time. Squaring his shoulders, he turned on his side, to make a smaller target. But Axton grabbed him by the front of his jacket, yanking them together for a swift crack of skulls. He brought his knee up, sharp to the gut.

Hal doubled over with a heave, but he didn't drop. His fist slammed into Axton's belly, making him lose his wind. A second punch made him let go.

Hearing himself grunt, Axton fought again against his instincts: _N__ot the gun not the gun __**not the gun**_-

Hal threw an uppercut to his chin that snapped Axton's head. A follow-up to his cheek burst a metallic-tasting bubble of blood around his teeth. A third punch bounced him back against the wall, with a crack of plaster and a groan.

Axton let himself fall. And, through the clarity of pain, just one thought:

_Good boy_.

"For fuck's sake," Widow muttered, the charming seductress no longer. "Do I have to do everything myself?"

Looking up from the floor, Axton saw her kick her leg up. Her shoe flew off, glancing Hal in the shoulder. Grabbing the pendant around her neck, she ripped it from its chain and threw it at Hal's feet. It didn't bounce but popped, belching a murky, purplish smoke whose intense odor made Axton's head swim and Hal retch.

Kicking off her other heel to run, Widow snorted. "Later, boys."

Axton tried to raise his arm, to grab her foot, her dress, anything to stop her, when something rushed past his head: Hal, body-slamming Widow face-first into the corridor with a sharp grunt.

She'd saved her head with her hands, and pushed back against the wall to shove him off. One leg flew out behind her, connecting with Hal's gut. He staggered, and she spun, another kick catching him in the ear with a dull whack.

He stumbled but didn't fall. One hand struck out, snatching at her hair. The other balled into a fist.

Axton heard a cracking _pok!_A moment later, Widow fell to the floor, a drifting tendril of her cornsilk hair sticking to the fresh red bloom beneath her nose.

Despite his lingering haze, Axton smiled at the sight.

Hal appeared in his vision then, a bit bloodied and red-eyed himself, but not much else worse for events. "You all right?"

Axton took his offered hand and pulled himself to sitting. "I think so." He shifted back against the wall. "What the hell happened? She a psi, or somethin'?"

"Synthetic pheromones," Hal said as he squatted beside. "They're illegal. Didn't you read her dossier?"

"There was a dossier?" Axton asked, blinking up at him.

"Yeah." Hal chuckled. "Don't tell me you only paid attention to all those zeroes on her reward poster?"

"I just looked at Razorback's notes," Axton muttered, tapping his hand against his face, to dab at the blood oozing from one nostril.

Tsk-ing under his breath, Hal shrugged off his jacket and crumpled the end of one sleeve into a bundle, which he pressed to Axton's face.

"Dahl Biochem did some research into them, back on Phaestus," Hal explained. "They work like hyper-suggestive catalysts. Real high-end espionage stuff. And, lots easier to fight if you know it's coming."

"Shit hits like a hammer," Axton said, wiping the sleeve under his nose. He sniffed, the dribble of blood barely evident anymore. Frowning, he nodded toward Widow's still-prone form. "Better call Security, get her isolated 'til we make planetfall. Don't want any other sap fallin' under her spell."

Frowning back, Hal ignored the self-reproach. "You sure you're all right?"

"I can handle a hangover."

"Okay, then," the engineer said, and grabbed Axton beneath his armpits. "Let's get you up."

Hal hauled him to his feet and eased him against the wall again, where they stood, chest-to-chest and eye-to-eye. His head didn't feel nearly so swimmy as before, and that sickly sweet smell was gone from his nostrils and the back of his mouth. _Something_ still itched at Axton's nerves, though, making his spine cringe.

He gave a slow, woozy blink before glancing away. "I need a minute."

"Wait here," Hal said. "I'll sort this."

Axton just bobbed his head, grateful for the relief. Whatever Widow had used on him, he still seemed to be feeling the effects, muscles tingling with a nervous energy and his skin flushing warm in blotches.

Ship Security arrived and took Widow to confined quarters below decks, as soon as Hal explained – and gave proof of – her wanted status. She had some groggy choice words for all of them, but she reserved a distinctly unladylike huck of spit for Hal, adding, "Fucking Parian," as she was escorted away.

"What's that mean?" Axton muttered in her wake.

"Some people just aren't good losers," Hal said, watching her until she disappeared behind the closing lift doors. He turned back to Axton, one hand open. "You look like you could use a lie-down."

Axton nodded. Balancing against Hal's arm, he stumbled his way to their borrowed berth and bed.

The ship's med team would have had some stim-heals, but that would have required license checks, and too many extra questions. Instead, Axton opted for a simple pack of ice wrapped in a towel, which Hal handed to him as he sat beside him on the bed.

"This should help." Easing back, the engineer smiled. "Got to keep that pretty face intact."

With the pack against his cheek, Axton couldn't quite smirk. "Thanks."

"I ought to be thanking you," Hal said. "For going easy on me."

Noticing the red split at the edge of Hal's bottom lip, that odd knotting in Axton's guts tightened again. "Maybe I pulled a few punches," he admitted, glancing away a moment. His gaze fell to his Jakobs, still tucked in its holster and sitting on the table, and his mouth went dry.

He looked back to Hal. The bright intelligence and ready concern in the younger man's face eased the tension in his belly a bit.

"You did good," Axton told him. Though, with Hal's clear gaze shining back at him, the words sounded lame.

The engineer didn't seem to mind. "I couldn't let her just get away," he said, chuckling softly. "Not with my partner." And his smile, however imperfect at the moment, was so trusting and honest and beautiful, it made Axton's chest and throat ache.

Suddenly, staring into those gorgeous baby blues, Axton realized it wasn't the residual influence of Widow's chems making his insides churn, but something much more real, deep, and incontrovertible.

Letting the icepack drift to his lap, he reached up with his other hand and hooked it behind Hal's head.

"Axton?" Hal murmured. But that was all before Axton silenced them both, with a firm and purposeful kiss.

* * *

**__****_From the author:_**___ Yep. I'm going there.  
_

_**Next: Sword and Stone.**_


	10. Sword and Stone

**Warning**: Mature situations.

* * *

_The story so far: Axton once said, A brush with death makes one appreciate life that much more. So, some honest appreciation...__  
_

**Chapter ****9: Sword and Stone  
**

They kissed for neither heartbeat nor eternity, just a marvelously warming while that made Axton wonder why in hell it had taken him so long to make this move.

When they finally broke for air, Hal agreed:

"I was starting to think you were never going to do that."

Unwilling to pull away too far, Axton chuckled under his breath. "It's fraternization," he said, thinking of the cautionary words Sarah had muttered to him the first time he'd managed to pull her into a temporary bed not unlike this one, during their first assignment together on Leda.

"It might be," Hal said. "If we were still with Dahl. But, we're not. And we can do whatever we want." He brushed his lips close again but didn't kiss, only whispering, "What do you want?"

"What're you offering?" Axton returned, snickering again, at how sudden, crazy, and _right_ this was.

Half-rising on one knee, Hal just grinned. He cupped Axton's face with his hands, tilting both their heads for a deeper kiss that sent Axton's synapses into a sparking frenzy. A flush of warmth bloomed between them, but a chill rushed along his spine, popping gooseflesh over his arms. Plucking open Axton's shirt button by button, Hal's fingers strayed over the hard, naked points of his nipples, making them ache.

Axton hummed at his feather-light touch, almost like a woman's. Until Hal brought their chests together, to push them down to the bed. That was the insistent strength of a man, the same as the assertive pull on his belt and trousers was that of a man, too.

Hal reached between their groins and slid his hand into Axton's shorts, to circle his dick with his fingers. He stroked, once, and Axton drew a sharp breath through his nose.

That steady, knowing grip definitely belonged to a man.

Another earnest stroke made Axton unwind his tongue and mutter, "Fuck, you know what you're doing."

Looking down through a fall of hair, Hal gave a short laugh. "You sound surprised."

"Yeah, well," Axton drawled, as he felt a different sort of heat burn. "I've never done this with a guy before."

Hal cocked one blond brow. "Really?" He smiled. "Well, then this is a first for both of us."

Axton blinked. "Yeah?"

Hal nodded. His smile became a grin. "I've never done this with a guy who's never done this with a guy before."

Despite the almost desperate rush of blood to his face, Axton laughed. Hal did, too. The sound eased the tangled tension in the air between them, and, as they quieted again, Axton lifted his chin, seeking a fresh start of kisses. Hal obliged, with three noiseless pecks of his lips whose tininess was designed to assuage. They did so, urging Axton to put his arms around the other man more firmly. Hal answered this the same, too, sealing their mouths together and smothering any troubled protests with his tongue.

Another groan rumbled up from Axton's chest, though he couldn't have said if it were for any residual doubt or shame, or for the skilful squeeze of Hal's hand between his legs. When that delightful grip went loose, though, he hummed a lament.

Hal left off him only a moment. "Don't worry," he said between their wet lips. He smiled again, adding, "I'll be gentle."

Recalling the whore's room at the brothel, where they'd had their first fleeting taste of sex together, Axton snickered. "Not too gentle, now. I can handle it."

Gaze glinting in reply, Hal murmured, "We'll see." He crawled away, down Axton's neck and chest and belly, teasing his way along the route with lips and tongue.

Axton let go a sigh of tortured delight for every suckle and lick, until Hal reached his hips, where he pulled with surgical precision at the remaining hold of trouser waist and zipper. He practiced the same sort of careful exactness with his briefs, struggling the shorts past his hips.

Axton sucked a breath, not looking for fear it might ruin the thrill of eager anticipation. He felt the blow of the younger man's sigh over his skin, followed by the renewed stroke of his fingers. Then, Hal told him, in a voice quiet for its appreciation:

"You have a handsome cock."

Belly cringing with a short laugh, Axton recalled Sarah's playful but unapologetic comparisons between him and previous lovers. "About average."

"For size, maybe," Hal admitted, playing his fingertips over the head in a barely-there caress. "But, size isn't everything."

Axton swallowed, as another flush of warmth made his brow break with a faint sweat. "Is that your experience?"

Running his fingers along the shaft, Hal hummed. "Everybody knows, it's what you do with it that matters."

Axton raised his head; he had to look, now. To gaze into those gorgeous blue eyes and see for himself the depths of the other man's desire. "What do you want to do with it?" he asked, his throat nearly parching around the words.

Returning his gaze, Hal blinked, all playful humor gone from his face. "I want to suck it," he said, as though it were the most natural thing in the galaxy.

Axton's pulse jumped, with a new excitement not for any taboo but for the sweet joy of matching lust. Though, he could only think to say, "Yeah?"

Hal nodded. "I've wanted to, since Cin."

"Why'd you wait?" The pounding of his blood created a _tump-tump_ rhythm in Axton's chest and head, and prompted an enthusiastic bounce of his dick toward Hal's mouth.

The engineer's focus didn't stray; he kept their gazes locked together. "Didn't think you were ready."

Reaching down, Axton laid his hand on Hal's face, just a faint press of his fingertips to the younger man's temple. "I'm ready, now."

Hal's lips curled in a smile. "Me, too," he said, and wound his grip around Axton's cock once more. He did look away at that moment, dipping his head to press a series of light kisses to the bulging shaft, working his way to the top with each one. There, he paused, just staring, for a patter of rapid heartbeats that came so fast for Axton, they flowed into a thudding blur in his chest.

At last, Hal closed his eyes, as though readying for a kiss. Dipping his head, he put that sweet mouth over Axton's member, not inch by cautious inch but with a sheer, unhesitating audacity that swallowed him nearly whole.

"Oh," Axton said, amazed, anxious, and ashamed in the same second.

Hal's hand possessed a knowing, bold dexterity, but it paled in comparison to what he could do with his mouth. Lips closed firmly around the shaft, he employed an eager, swirling play of his tongue around the tender head. He hummed, low in his throat, thrilling the already sensitive nerves in Axton's dick.

Closing his eyes, too, Axton let his head fall back between his shoulders in a sighing swoon. "Oh, darlin'," he muttered, shifting his legs open to give the engineer more room to work.

Palming the underside of Axton's sac in a surprisingly delicate message, Hal groaned another reverberating thrum that made Axton push higher off the bed, to send himself deeper. He was about to tell the younger man he was no stranger to the myriad nuances of a great blowjob, when Hal slipped his finger into his ass – not far, just enough to blow his mind a little bit more.

"Oh, fuck," Axton wheezed, the muscles in his belly and legs clenching from this subtle penetration. Grabbing a fistful of Hal's hair, he jerked his hips, for an inelegant but oh-so thrilling hump of his partner's face.

As though spurred by this rougher sport, Hal answered with one more guttural groan. His head bobbed faster, his finger probed deeper, each action matching the other with a swinging see-saw rhythm that set Axton's nerves on fire.

"Oh, Jesus," he breathed, now, as the mated tempo of lips and hands and hips spiraled together in a syncopated dance. And maybe because Widow had already gotten him so hot and bothered, or maybe because the wet warmth of Hal's mouth felt so Goddamned luscious, but Axton came, all too quickly, before he was ready, with a brief constriction of his muscles and a low, eked, "Oh, God, _yes_...!"

For a long minute afterward, he could only lie there, the taut knot of his former inhibitions unraveling from the base of his spine as Hal finished sucking him off.

Axton let him take his time. His dick tingled tender, but the hollow of Hal's mouth was too wonderful to leave. So, with a relaxed and satisfied sigh, Axton dropped his shoulders to the bed, to revel in the dreamy, floating sensation of his desires set free.

He drifted into a doze for a spell, but a sharp _pop!_ of pressurized air made him open his eyes again, to find Hal beside him, taking a gulp from the bottle of champagne. Neck long and smooth and lips shining with sweat or booze or both, he looked delicious.

Pushing up to sitting, Axton flashed him a lazy smile of want.

The engineer swung down the bottle, passing it over with a backhanded wipe of his mouth. But Axton grabbed Hal, instead, for a kiss that tasted like bitter ale, a faint echo of his own spit and sweat mixed with rich champagne. It revved the engine of his lust anew, and he crushed their lips together, teeth clicking as he invaded Hal's mouth with his tongue in a show of ready vigor.

They broke for a moment, allowing Hal's breath to blow warm between their mouths. "Axton-"

"Call me Ax," he corrected, and smiled. "I like when you call me Ax."

Hal smiled, too. "Ax," he repeated. "You want to keep going?"

"I want it all, darlin'," Axton said, before their lips and tongues found each other again. He gave a forceful yank on Hal's belt, swallowing the little _unf_-ing grunt the engineer let out as their groins came together.

"Can you fuck?" Hal asked, extending one arm to replace the bottle on the table. It tipped from the edge, spilling to the floor.

Neither of them went for it.

"Yeah," Axton said. Their lashes fluttered together with every blink, their faces were so close. "I can fuck. As much as you want, beautiful."

Hal took hold of Axton's neck with both hands. "Then, fuck me," he said, and pulled them together for another avid, devouring kiss.

Growling around their tongues, Axton flipped them to the bed, taking control of their desires from the top. Ravenous for the press and clutch of flesh, they scrabbled at their confining clothes, the slapping leather, clattering buttons, and rustling wool and silk no match for their fevered, desperate passion.

They exchanged few words, none of them wasted on sappy, emotional cliché. Just the groans, moans, grunts, and cries that told Axton everything: what he wanted was this, what he needed was now, and this boy who kissed and sucked and fucked like no one he'd ever met was exactly what he'd been looking for...and he'd never let go.

* * *

**__****_From the author:_**___ Axton's name means "swordsman's stone." If Axton's the sword, and Hal's the stone, well...  
For those of you jumping ship, thanks for reading this far. For those of you holding on, double thank you!  
_

_**Next: **Gaige returns, in** Come so Far.  
**_


	11. Come so Far

_The story so far: Axton let Hal go where no man had ever gone before. Now, it's Gaige's turn...__  
_

**Intermission: Come so Far**

From across the crackling embers of their dwindling fire, Gaige's eyes glowed bright green and wide in her face. "You had sex?" she asked, sounding less surprised than curious.

Axton let his expression go sarcastically slack. "No. We got some cookies and had a tea party." He cringed his brows together, half-shouting, "Of course, we had sex!"

Gaige cringed, too, just a bit, from the fire, and from him.

Instantly, Axton regretted his harshness. Because, for all her crazy anarchy wig-outs and bandit bloodletting that made even her killer robot look tame by comparison, she was basically still a kid. The details of his past probably came as a shock to her sheltered Eden-5 sensibilities.

Not the homo part. Because Hammerlock was a notorious ponce, and Moxxi hit on anything with a pulse, regardless of what sat between the legs. But they weren't Vault Hunters. They weren't in the thick of the shit, like Maya and Sal and the rest. And, while everybody had their secrets – Zer0 seemed to love perpetuating his own mystery, and who knew what the hell was up with Krieg – Vault Hunters had to trust their lives with each other. A Vault Hunter too busy wondering what was going on in his fellow's head (or pants) wasn't focused on the job, and not being focused on the job got people killed.

Axton knew that much.

Releasing the tension of his snap with a sigh, he prepped himself for a quick apology. But Gaige spoke up first, quiet and inquisitive:

"Did you love him?"

Axton's face fell again, this time not on purpose. "What?"

"Did you love him?" she repeated, more clearly.

An uncomfortable rippling along his spine made him shift position. He snorted. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You had sex with him. I just thought-"

"Look," he said, in a tone even he could recognize as patronizing. "I know you're not old enough to understand this. But, sometimes, us grown-ups, we just wanna screw something. It don't always mean we're 'in love' or whatever," he said, waving his hands beside his head with a sneer.

Gaige's reddish brows came together. "Dudes, you mean."

He blinked, saying again, "What?"

"When you say, 'grown-ups,' you really mean dudes. Brahs. The ones who'll screw anything, without thinking about what it means." The green in her eyes turned darker, as she narrowed her gaze. "You know: assholes."

Axton snarled. "For somebody who incinerated her classmate over a science fair prize, you're pretty fuckin' judgmental. Yeah, that's right," he told her, as her expression went from combative to defensive in an instant. "I did my research; I listened to the ECHOs. So, I'd keep the holier-than-thou opinions to myself, if I were you."

Sitting back, he felt a short surge of triumph at shutting her up.

It didn't last.

With a harrumph of characteristically teenage attitude, she said, "Your ex-wife was right. You don't care about anything except yourself."

Axton closed his lips. He couldn't even make the spit to swallow.

"You're not the only one who knows how to access ECHO archives." When he didn't come back, Gaige shot him a sneer of her own. "Don't feel so smart, now, do you, turret-man?"

A long minute of bristling, staring silence hung between them, broken only by the crackle of sticks and the whirring rotors of that hovering robot bodyguard.

Axton swung his gaze away first, muttering, "Fucking engineers," from one corner of his grimace.

The sound of Gaige's snicker made him look over at her again. She had her cybernetic arm up, the mechanical fist rotating drill-like beside her head.

"Engineers do it with precision," she said, flashing him one of her snarky grins.

Despite himself, Axton let out a short laugh, bursting the straining bubble between them. He shook his head, more at himself than at her. "Oh," he groaned, still chuckling as he rubbed his hand over his face. "Why can't I stay mad at you?"

Gaige gave a shrug of half-affected innocence. "Everybody loves me."

It was true. He, Zer0, Maya, and Salvador had joined forces on Hyperion's ambush train because it was the smart thing to do: more bodies meant more targets, more guns, more eyes watching backs and scouting point. But they'd been a team only in the loosest sense of the word. Too many conflicting goals, too many clashes of personality. Gaige had given them a reason to really come together, though: somebody to teach, look out for, laugh with.

Looking at her across the top of the fire, Axton smiled a little.

He and Sarah had talked about kids, once, early in their relationship. About how they were a lot of responsibility, migraines' worth of trouble and banks' worth of money. And, yet, about how nice it might be to watch a kid grow up, shaped by their guidance, protected from the mistakes of their pasts. The dissolution of his marriage had preempted the possibility of children long before the sterilizing side-effects of New-U cloning, but, sometimes, Axton still wondered.

Gazing back at him, Gaige's grin softened. "And, I think you want to tell me about this," she muttered, and shrugged her narrow shoulders. "Talking about stuff always makes me feel better."

Serenity being mostly a foreign concept to him, Axton looked back into the fire. Though, before he knew it, the words tumbled forth, unpracticed and unbidden:

"When you're a kid, and you first step off the farm, you think your life's gonna go one way. Be a good soldier, find a good woman. Maybe have a coupla ankle-biters. Do your duty, get your pension, then retire to some sunny, quiet beach somewhere." He glanced at his hands, and the compacted autocannon laying there; he hadn't even noticed pulling it out. Moving his thumb over a deeply-carved scratching in the metal, he sighed. "But, then, somethin' happens. And everything you thought you knew – everything everybody ever told you, about the way things are supposed to be – all that gets sucked out the airlock. And you don't know what's right or wrong, anymore. Like 'right' and 'wrong' are just- what d'ya call it? – subjective."

A different sort of silence settled between them this time, until Gaige said, "Like, how bandits can sometimes be the good guys?"

Axton looked up from the brick in his hands. To his surprise, Gaige had moved from her seat across the fire to the space beside him, her sleep sack pulled around her as a puffy skirt. "Somethin' like that," he said.

"I don't think it's wrong, you know," she whispered, a gentle absolution in the dark. "What you did with him." She glanced into her lap, talking into her chest: "I mean, sometimes, you just can't help how you feel about somebody."

"It ain't that." His fingers drifted over the scratching in the autocannon again. "You shouldn't think about a partner that way. You start concentrating more on them than on the job, and it gets dangerous. For everybody."

"Is that why you think Maya should stay away from Krieg?"

At thought of the psychopath's perpetually bloody buzz-axe, Axton sniffed. "I think everybody should stay away from Krieg."

Gaige paused, lips pursed to one side. Regarding him a moment, she asked in a hushed voice, "Was he like me? Your partner, I mean."

Axton spared her a measuring look. They shared a resemblance of pretty eagerness and youth between them, but: "Not really."

"I thought you said he was an engineer."

"He built weapons."

Gaige jerked her thumb at Deathtrap. "What do you call him?"

"Like artillery," Axton clarified. He spread his hands for emphasis. "Big guns."

She nodded and hummed. "I guess all boys like guns. Some girls do, too, though!"

Considering the way she'd ooh and ah at the sight of new hardware, he had to agree with the sexist dig. "I suppose they do."

Her gaze strayed over him again. "You like them," she said, her voice oddly tentative. "Don't you?"

"Guns?"

"Girls," she corrected.

"Yeah," he said, rolling his eyes a little. "I like girls."

The question started a perturbed nettling at the base of his spine. As though he couldn't get under Aubrey's table to put a smile on her face once in a while, or comfort poor, stuttering Karima with his cock. Just because he'd felt..._things_ for a man. A beautiful, brilliant young man who'd looked up to him, and who he'd never wanted to-

"So, you screwed around with a guy." Gaige's unaffected blitheness, abruptly renewed, jolted him from his thoughts. "So, what? Moxxi screws around with girls, and nobody cares about that."

"That's different," Axton told her knowingly. "With chicks, it's hot. But with dudes..." He drifted off, wavering his hand in the air.

Gaige cocked a smile at him. "I dunno," she said, making a point of looking him up and down, from his lap to the top of his hair. "That can be hot, too, depending on the parties involved."

He felt the tingling of a faint burn, not from the proximity to their fire. "What are you, like, eighteen?"

"Nineteen."

"You still shouldn't be thinkin' about that stuff. 'Specially not about me!"

Her smile turned teasing. "Don't flatter yourself, soldier. You're old enough to be my dad."

Not quite, but Axton still snickered. "Which means I can put you over my knee, little girl."

Gaige snickered back. "Now, that sounds tempting!"

Coming around the fire, Deathtrap's hover-jets spurted, a robotic version of a protective snort.

Gaige pursed her lips again, throwing a backward glance at her robot as it hovered behind her shoulder. "He does that every time I get flirty."

Axton grinned at the machine. "Good boy."

Clicking her tongue, Gaige narrowed her eyes at him, this time. She let any reprimand or rejoinder go at that, though, her expression softening again. "Do you miss him?" she asked, barely opening her mouth around the words.

Indifferent bravado didn't seem to work on her. He opted for the truth, this time, however waffling:

"I don't know. I guess, maybe. Sometimes." He forced a more casual grin. "But, I got my trusty autogun. She's never let me down."

Gaige's face stayed serious. "That's not the same thing."

Axton didn't let himself think how much she sounded like another engineer he'd known. "Says the little mechro-girl with the robot best buddy."

She swung her gaze toward Deathtrap. "He protects me," she agreed. "Watches over me. He's always there when I need him." Her long, pale lashes shone with a shimmery weight, even against the dark. "But, he's not my dad. He's not a person. He's not even..." She swallowed, and he almost didn't hear the rest, except he strained extra-hard to do so: "_Warm_."

Looking at her, the lines of her profile aglow from the fire, she seemed much younger than nineteen...and much older, too. And alone, the same kind of alone a person got when the only thing he could trust was the mech at his side.

Without analyzing his reasons too much, Axton shifted one hip closer to her. "Come here," he muttered, easing one arm around her, more naturally than he'd thought he could do, and without any of her teenage protests. "Why don't you grab some shut-eye?"

She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze as she shook her head. "I want to hear the rest."

He frowned. "It ain't pretty-"

"Neither was my school auditorium, the day I left Eden-5."

Axton felt his chest deflate. "I shouldn'ta said that-"

"Whatever." She waved away his thoughtless tongue with her mechanical arm. "Marcy was a bitch. She deserved what she got." She settled a little closer to him, warm in the night. "We've come this far," she murmured. "And, I want to know. Your partner's not with you, now, so..._something_ must have happened."

He glanced into the embers, his vision-memory burning equally orange-red as he recalled the clattering sound of suppressive fire.

"Yeah," he said. "Somethin' happened."

A rustle of leather and nylon, as she nudged his rib with her inside shoulder. "Tell me."

Looking down at her again, he smiled wryly. "You haven't been a Hunter very long."

"Long enough."

He snickered at her spunk. "Well, when you've been one as long as I have, you get used to lookin' down the safe side of a gun at a job." His smile tightened into a thin, grim line. "And it's real easy to forget there's usually somebody else doin' the exact same thing to you."

* * *

_**Next: Eat. Fuck. Kill.**_


	12. Hot for Teacher

**Warning: Mature situations  
**

* * *

_The story so far: Capturing Red Widow led to a lot more than just a potentially handsome payout...__  
_

**Chapter 10: Hot for Teacher  
_or,_ Eat. Fuck. Kill.**

Ax shifted in the cruise ship bed, the cool sheets slipping around him like a lover's loose embrace. With a soporific hum, he put out one hand, seeking for the skin of said lover. Finding only empty sheet, he flickered his eyes open with a sticky smack, sleep-crust blurring his vision before he wiped it away with a sniff.

He rose from the pillows, calling hoarsely, "Hal?"

No answer. Aside from his discarded suit rumpled on the floor beside the bed, nothing in the suite seemed out of place. But, no Hal.

For a second, Ax thought he might have dreamed last night, the product of too much chems and heady feeling. Then, the cabin door gave a click, and the engineer walked in, dressed in his stolen clothes from the evening previous.

"You're awake," was all he said, pleasantly polite.

Ax sat up, watching him. "Where'd you go?"

"Checking up on our meal ticket." Hal snickered. "She is not pleased, let me tell you! Threatened to do something extremely unsavory to both our bollocks. Bloody Parians, indeed," he added in a disdainful mutter.

Hal sat down on the bed to unlace his shoes, as though this were all perfectly mundane: just two hunters waiting on the next step of the job. Ax debated on how to broach the subject of what did – or didn't – happen between them last night, when Hal shifted halfway around, smiling in profile.

"First Officer says we'll make planetfall on Pasandra in a few hours. He's radioed the local constabulary there, to let them know we're bringing in a prisoner."

Ax stroked the silk sheet, not quite reaching for the other man's hand. "And the reward?"

Turning to him fully, Hal chuckled. "I knew you were going to ask that." He shifted close with a smile that almost growled. "Soon as we hand her over, Widow is out of our hair. And we are a million dollars richer."

"Nice," Ax said, though, in all honesty, money was the furthest thing from his mind, for once. Instead, he touched Hal's wrist, slipping his fingers lazily beneath his cuff. "What you wanna do in the meantime?"

The engineer grinned, the smooth curl of his lips inviting. "I'm sure we can come up with something." Circling his hand behind Ax's head, he pulled them together for a slow, lapping kiss that Ax answered with a low moan.

Not a dream then, nor some chemical-induced fantasy, but reality. Hot, horny, hard-bodied reality rolling on top of him for a deeper exchange of tongues, as they kicked away sheets for another energetic romp that put the last one to shame.

Still feeling the flush of their afterglow when they arrived on Pasandra, Ax decided they should give up their luxurious berth in favor of their reward...as well as avoiding any unwanted questions when the _Princess Eve_ arrived at its final disembarkation point on Anteia, where their stolen idents were sure to raise flags.

The administering Pasandran law was a lady-marshal by the name of Kotonou, a woman with short black hair and long legs made for walking. Decked out in thick, curve-confining leather that creaked with every step and shift under her duster, she lowered her hand to the long-barreled Jakobs shotgun at her side when she saw them coming.

"One Red Widow," Hal said. "We have her documents-"

"I don' need documents," Kotonou said, her voice thick with a Malan accent. She tipped her hat in Widow's direction. "Dis one, I been waitin' fer, you don't know how long. At'erton was one o' ours."

Ax raised one brow. "One of her marks was a lawman?"

Kotonou's full lips pursed to a pucker. "One o' de best men I ever had de privilege o' workin' wit'." She gave Widow's shoulder a rough shake before shoving her over the threshold of the cell. "'Til dis little parasite got into his head."

"She did it with this," Hal said, passing over the handheld aerosol cylinder from Widow's effects. "Synthetic pheromones."

"Pheromones?" the marshal echoed.

"It's a specialized chem compound. Overrides the logic centers of the brain." Hal shrugged, sparing a glance at Ax. "Some men are just...more susceptible than others."

The lines around Kotonou's mouth deepened in disgust. Clenching the cylinder in her hand, she glared at Widow and growled, "He deserved better dan dis."

Widow sneered. "All men deserve what they get."

The marshal's hand shot up from her side, her gloved fist connecting with Widow's nose. Blood spurted, and Widow staggered backward to the lone bunk.

"Shut yer hole," Kotonou told her as she punched the control button for the cell's electrical containment wall. "Or I'll have 'em shut for ya. All of 'em," she added with a snarl.

Ax snickered, muttering aside to Hal, "I think I'm in love." He nodded at Kotonou. "What d'you say, marshal? You the marrying kind?"

"To de law," Kotonou replied, as she moved to the desk.

Following her, Ax grinned. "How 'bout just a drink, then?"

Organizing their payout, the marshal smiled back, white and shining. "Not while I'm on duty. But, de Soused Dodger's open for business. You can have a drink dere, if'n you like."

"Sounds like a plan," Ax said, with a wink and a smile in Kotonou's direction. "Maybe we'll see you there?"

"Don't count on it. But, come back after you sober up," the marshal suggested, to which Ax gave a knowing snicker. "We might be outside de Inner Ring, but we got plenty o' work for good skiptraces."

Tucking away their reward into his ruck, Hal nodded. "We'll do that."

Once they made it to the street, Ax let his snicker become a full-fledged laugh, as he hooked his arm around Hal's shoulders, in something closer to a choke-hold than an embrace.

"A million bucks!" he said, blowing the words between his teeth. "Ya know what that makes us, partner?"

"Good at our jobs?" Hal guessed.

"Rich," Ax corrected with another grin. He pulled Hal in with the crook of his elbow, lifting his mouth to the engineer's ear. "We should celebrate."

"I thought that's what we were doing," Hal said, nodding toward the saloon across the street.

But Ax shook his head. "Not like that."

Grabbing Hal by the front of his shirt, he yanked him three steps to the left, into a dark alleyway between the jail and the building beside. He pinned the younger man to the wall with his shoulders, swooping in for a delving kiss.

Hal let out a muffled noise of surprise but didn't shy away, shrugging off his ruck to put his arms around Ax.

They stepped together, a single shifting shadow pressed against the wall. A wide bin and a pile of construction materials gave them some cover, so Ax took the opportunity to rub his hand over the front of Hal's trousers.

The engineer chuckled. "You're insatiable...!"

"Eat, fuck, kill," Ax replied through a smile. "That's me." Working backwards, he started to fumble with the other man's belt and zipper.

"What are you doing?"

Ax snorted. "Oh, now, you play hard to get?"

His belt and trousers already dangled open, metal bits _tink_-ing against each other, but Hal looked around in some alarm. "Not here...! Let's- Let's go someplace else. Someplace safe-"

"I don't want safe," Ax said, and, without waiting, he dropped to his haunches, pulling Hal's clothes with him. The engineer gave a yelp of protest, but that thick, gorgeous cock bounced up, flaunting for attention. Which Ax was only too happy to give. He shoved Hal's bare ass to the wall, eliciting another startled, gasping yip. But the younger man quickly swallowed that with a low-pitched grunt, the same as Ax attempted to swallow him, with a greedy ravishing with his mouth.

Despite his earlier reluctance, Hal slipped his fingers into Ax's hair, half-stroking and half-clutching. As he let go a submissive sigh, Ax gave an answering growl of desire that made his whole throat rumble. That was enough to make Hal give up any pretense of modest inhibition and start thrusting against Ax's face, his shaft slip-sliding nearly hilt-deep with each successive jerk of his hips.

"Oh," Hal wheezed, but no more. Not even when the loose flesh over his balls turned taut, nor when he finally came, with an abrupt burst of spunk that had the same bitter taste of horehound as his sweat and spit.

Ax took it down in a single gulp of concentration, but continued to suck until the firmness began to fade, because he liked it that way. He gave a parting fondle of Hal's relaxing sac and wiped his mouth with the top of one hand. With a ginger upward tug of the engineer's clothes, he rose and pressed himself close again, so the buttons on their chests scraped against each other with every breath.

Hal hummed, lips curling into a dazed smile. Before he could give thanks or praise, though, Ax busied his mouth with a probing, quelling kiss.

A strand of lingering spit broke between their lips when they parted. Smoothing the tousled fringe from Hal's temple, Ax fixed him with an inviting look. "Still want to go someplace safe?"

Stroking at Ax's hair the same, Hal shook his head. "I want to do what you do."

"What's that?" Ax asked, gaze roving from eyes to lips to body before swinging back up again.

Hal's answering look turned smoldering, more hungry predator, now, than skittish prey. "Eat," he said. "Fuck." One side of his mouth twisted in a subtle snarl. "Kill."

Breathing deep, Ax caught the smell of his want: so desperate to be, so desperate to please. But a better thief than hunter, and by far a better engineer than thief. His brains were better kept intact, not splattered on a field or across a wall. Not to mention his masterful, light-fingered touch, or the smooth fullness of his unscarred flesh...

"Time enough for that, later." Bringing their mouths together again, Ax murmured between their lips, "Right now, I want to fuck you again."

Hal pulled his chin away. "I want you to teach me."

"Later," Ax repeated.

Hal kept up his protest: "I want to have your back-"

"You do." Sniffing an assuring scoff, Ax rubbed his thumb over the bone of the engineer's cheek. "You're the one who took down Widow."

Hal looked at him, blue gaze piercing and insistent. "She wasn't Razorback."

At reminder of that kill, Ax felt a rush of blood. Not for the memory of the chase or the last bullet, but for the wavy haze of horror in Hal's eyes.

Now, Ax met that challenging gaze with a stare. "You run with me, sweetheart, there won't be any shortage of things to kill. Trust me on that." Clutching at the short hairs of the engineer's scruff, he felt his voice go hoarse with its own desperation. "But, you never know what's gonna come next. So, fuck first," he said, pulling their faces close again. "Always fuck first." And he didn't close his eyes until after they were in a new kiss, not to prove his point, but because he wanted to.

This time, Hal didn't resist.

Drawing him from their shadowy space, Ax skipped the saloon and went straight for The Jewel hotel, where he blew a full stack of cash on the best room in the house, complete with full facilities en suite so they could indulge in each other's naked company as much as they'd done on the cruise ship. He ordered them a decadent supply of food and drink, too, but didn't wait for its arrival, at once pulling Hal into his arms again the moment the door was closed.

"We have to be careful," Hal told him.

Ax paused only long enough to snicker. "It's not like I can knock you up."

Hal rolled his eyes. "That's not what I mean. A million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it won't last as long as you think."

"We earned this," Ax said, though he hadn't even stopped to admire their expensive hotel room beyond the double-wide bed. Tossing his own shirt there, he reached for Hal's.

The engineer didn't stop him, but warned again: "We shouldn't be wasting."

"Have you seen this town?" Ax said, deftly pulling one button after another. "It'd go to waste if we didn't use it."

"We're going to need real supplies," Hal explained, as Ax finished the last button of his shirt. "And soon. More than just food and a bed. Transport, gear, materiel-"

"Darlin'," Ax said, scolding for silence. Cupping the younger man's face in his hands, he smiled. "Just shut up and let me fuck you?"

Beneath his palms, Hal's face flushed warm, but Ax didn't give him pause to reply, shushing him with a kiss. Reveling a long minute in the cooperative slide of tongues, he didn't notice Hal unslip his belt or undo his pants – or his own – until the engineer pressed full-bodied against him, and Ax felt the fluttering tap of his firming arousal against his naked thigh.

"Now, who's insatiable?" Ax murmured, reaching down to offer him a stroke.

"You're rubbing off on me," Hal told him, chuckling.

Ax shook his head. "Nah." He curled his lips in a playful leer. "That would be wasting."

Hal blew a snort at the admittedly bad joke, but it became a clipped laugh when Ax gave him a push, to the top of their second temporary bed.

Hooking their limbs around each other, they kissed, and sweated, and, with a prep of spit, they fucked, the most liberated yet: like zealots come to spread their missionary word, and arachnids swaying back and forth on all eight legs, and rutting mammals desperate on their heat. They came so close together, that way, Ax thought it mostly luck. But, after cleaning up with two warmed wet towels they brought from the bath, he settled down upon the bed again and pulled Hal to him, longing for his already familiar heat, and the smell of blue electricity, like static before a storm, that always seemed so fresh on his skin, no matter how much he scrubbed.

Wordlessly, they nestled, front to back, like spoons laid in domestic simplicity. Ax felt as much as heard the beat of a pulse beneath his lips, pressed there at the base of the engineer's neck. Was it Hal's, or his own? Quickly, he decided it didn't matter. Just as it didn't matter what planet he was on, or what had brought him to this bed. So long as he had this place to rest safe and free, and this body strong and warm beside him.

Closing his eyes, Ax faded into an easy sleep. And he dreamed, of all things, of Sarah.

* * *

_**Author's Note:** Site guidelines prohibit the use of profanity in story titles or summaries, hence the different listing for this chapter.  
With the start of Act 2, I must express thanks to those who have followed and favorited this story, so far. I know my portrayal of these characters is not as pat as some might like them to be. But, that's what makes them interesting to me.  
Special thanks to reviewers Pink Pandoracorn - for Borderlands extra-goodness, check out the Pandoracorn's "After Jack" or the splendidly entertaining "Pairings and Ponderings" - and Shade the Raven, who's supported my stories for longer, more consistently, and more open-mindedly than anyone. It's always nice to know I'm not totally alone, out here.  
_

_**Next: Wife.**_


	13. Wife

_The story so far: Ax and Hal indulged in some sweetness. But even a bit of candy comes at a price...__  
_

**Chapter 11: Wife**

Pasandra might have been on the ass-end of the galaxy, but it had work, a full bounty board's worth.

"Takes time for warrants to transmit all de way out here," Kotonou explained as Ax scrolled through one wanted's dossier after another. She shrugged. "But, karma catches up to everyone."

"She is a bitch," Ax agreed. Looking up, he nodded toward Widow, still sulking in her cell. "Speakin' o' which, when's checkout time for that little lady?"

Kotonou followed his look. "T'ree days," she muttered over her shoulder. "But dat's not soon enough, for my taste."

Ax grunted. "Three days? I thought Calliope would be a lot more eager'n that to see her stand trial."

"Pasandra's a long way from de Inner Ring," Kotonou answered with a wry little smile.

He sidled over to the desk, leaning on one arm toward the marshal. "You stuck babysitting 'til then?"

"Someone's got to keep de law in dis town."

"No deputies?"

Kotonou smirked. "You volunteering?"

"No, ma'am!" Ax stood straight again. "Just asking if you could do with a quick break." He shot her a friendly leer. "All work and no play makes marshal a dull girl. Am I right?"

"Shouldn't you be packing Parian ass?" Widow called from across the room.

Looking over to her cell, Ax snarled. "You got a mouth on you, missy."

"I didn't hear you complaining."

He took a step to the edge of the desk and made a not-so-subtle grab for his crotch. "You wanna see if it's big enough for my dick?"

Kotonou stopped him with a glare. "Stand down."

Widow chuckled from her cell. "He wouldn't even know what to do with a woman, marshal."

"Shut it," Kotonou said over her shoulder, but Widow kept her focus on Ax, and kept talking.

"He's too busy sucking pretty boy cock in dark alleys." She narrowed her green eyes, the wrinkling of her nose twisting her mouth. "You let him put it up your ass, too?" She snickered. "I'd bet you do. I bet you love it. You big, dumb grunts act like you're the man of the world, but what you really crave is a nice, deep ass-fucking."

The Jakobs was in his hand before he knew it, and the only thing that stopped Ax from pointing it straight at Widow's cunt mouth was the harsh cock of a shotgun. He looked away from her, to face Kotonou, holding her twin barrels across her waist.

"Dis is my house, soldier," the marshal rumbled. "My town. You do as you please out dere on de rest o' de Edge, but not here. Here, you do as I say." She tipped up the business end of the shotgun just enough to make her point. "And, I say, stand down."

He'd dealt with enough men and women on the other side of a gun to know when one was bluffing. Kotonou was not one of those.

Raising his free hand in a yield, Ax eased his revolver back into its holster. "Just a reflex, marshal." He ventured a careful smile. "No harm, no foul?"

Kotonou lowered her shotgun the same. "Let's keep it dat way."

"He likes taking orders, marshal," Widow said, snickering. "Like every other closet shirtlifter."

Ax heard his molars scrape.

"I'd advise you to keep yer mout' shut," Kotonou told Widow with a subtle turn of her cheek. She never took her eyes off Ax, though. "Yer warrant says 'alive.' It don' say anyt'ing 'bout _intact_."

That shut Widow up, at least long enough for Ax to get the hell out of there before he shot her. The last thing he needed was for Kotonou to drag him into a cell, too. An ident and record inquiry would have brought Dahl out of the woodwork, for sure.

Of course, it wasn't the threat of Dahl's potential wrath that set his tread to stomping.

Widow couldn't have known. She was guessing. Goading. That was what she did: read men and lied to them and used them. He was letting her get to him. Again.

Ax clenched a fist.

Fuck that. Nobody gave him orders, not anymore. And, nobody turned him into something he wasn't.

He was a fighter: fresh off the transport from Hieronymus, his first sergeant had nicknamed him Aggroculture, for the heavy swing of his farmhand fists. He'd been a soldier; he was a hunter; he could kill without blinking. He was a _man_. He liked women and tits and pussy, and they _loved_ his dick, and, by God, he was going to use it.

He shoved open the door to the hotel room, finding Hal sitting cross-legged on the floor, a collection of tools and guns in various stages of dissembly across the floorboards and bed. At the moment, he was consumed in cleaning the barrel of what could have been the broken-down carbine set on his left side or the rifle laid on his right.

The engineer didn't even look up. "Never thought I'd miss Dahl," he mumbled, as though to himself. "Just fill out a req form and, the next day, whatever you need." He blew firmly into the cylinder, looked down the shaft with one eye, and resumed cleaning. "Not like this. I mean, I know Bandit doesn't have the budget we did, but this is substandard, even for them. I could build weapons twice as good as this for half the price, if I just had some decent materials."

Still standing in the doorway, Ax watched him pump the brush up and down the cylinder. "Beggars can't be choosers."

Hal grunted. More swift pumping, like a mime of a frantic fucking. "Did you get us a job?"

Ax's armpits started to sweat. "No."

"And, why not?"

"Got distracted."

Hal let out a little groaning sigh. "Well, we're going to need something soon," he said, though Ax mostly ignored it, trying his best not to watch and not to think: of Hal and of fucking and of fucking Hal, and what that made him. "I spent half our cash on this lot-"

"You wanna get some pussy?"

The engineer froze. Admittedly, the question had simply flown from Ax's mouth. But he let it stand, and waited.

After a slow-moving minute, Hal looked up, at last, blue eyes blinking. "Why would I do that?"

Ax felt his nostrils flare. "Why wouldn't you?"

Hal indicated the cylinder and brush in his hands. "Well, for one, I'm in the middle of something. And, for the second, I thought-"

"You thought, _what_?"

Hal sniffed. "I thought you wanted me to restock us for the next job." He wrinkled the bridge of his nose, faintly. "Which you were supposed to get, I might add."

"I'm nobody's bitch," Ax snapped.

That took the edge off the engineer's snark. "I never said you were," he muttered, barely parting his lips for the sentiment.

"Nobody tells me what to do." Ax jabbed his finger into his chest. "I give the orders around here. Got it?"

Hal just stared, expression slack, so Ax filled the sudden uneasy silence with a jumble of words he didn't even think to prep before their blurting:

"I don't fucking owe you anything. What I do with my dick is my business, nobody else's. I got where I am 'cause I fucking earned it. And I don't need you tellin' me what I am when you don't know a Goddamned thing about me."

"I didn't-"

"You're not my old man, you're not my wife-"

"What are you-"

"I'm not a homo!"

For a long minute, the only sound Ax heard in the room came from his own chest, heartbeat thudding. He couldn't be sure Hal was even breathing, from the stillness of his face and body. But, with a stare-breaking blink, the engineer finally let go an audible sigh and muttered, "I see." He set his tools on the floor and rose. Standing just a hair's taller than eye-to-eye with Ax, his expression was a mask as he said, "Fine."

Ax felt his chest constrict. "What d'you mean? What's fine?"

"You're right," Hal said. "You're a free agent; you can do what you like."

Not quite believing his own ears, Ax stared at him.

Hal made a shooing gesture with one hand. "Go on, then. Get your cock wet," he said, one edge of his lips curling ever so slightly around the words. That half-snarl faded a second later, replaced by more cool aloofness. "Just do me the courtesy of not bringing your whores back here. I don't need the distraction while I work." Turning to the bed, he picked up a narrow-tipped tool and returned to tinkering with the guns.

Ax watched him in silence another moment, that weight in his sternum making him grimace at Hal's back. But the engineer just worked, without protest, without a fight.

Spinning on the ball of one foot, Ax stalked out to the hall, wrenching the door shut again behind him.

Fuck Hal. He was a gearhead, a dollar a dozen. Without that killer autocannon – which he didn't even make proper use of, for Christ's sake; that thing could claim lives like a thundering Valkyrie, if he'd let it – Hal wasn't anything. Ax could get guns. He could drive, shoot, fight. What did he need with a partner, anyway? Just another mouth to feed, a back to watch. A liability.

A hunter sure as shit didn't need that in his life.

Coming to the Soused Dodger, he burst open both saloon doors with a dramatic flourish worthy of a gunslinger vid, announcing, "One at a time, ladies!"

The bar had a scattering of patrons drinking and playing cards, and a longer dice table at the far end of the room where a few less savory types paused in their gambling long enough to look up. But his only acknowledgment was the sound of the moustachioed bartender squeegeeing a shot glass.

Snorting, Ax made his way to the bar. This planet definitely could have used a lesson in proper hospitality, especially for a hunter willing to share his time and cash.

"What's your poison, stranger?" asked the barkeep, the waxed curling points of his moustache moving more than his mouth.

"Pussy," Ax replied. "Preferably in the plural."

Handlebars didn't blink. "That'll cost you."

Ax dipped two fingers into his pocket and raised them again, a rolled-up wad of bills tucked between his knuckles. He made to pass the cash over but quickly pulled it back, close to his ear. "I want clean, fit, and nothin' missing." Handlebars went for the cash, but Ax drew it back again, adding with a sniff, "And, no backtalk, either."

"You're just gonna spend a few hours," the other man muttered, one bar of his moustache tweaking in disdain. "You're not gonna marry 'em."

"Maybe you'd care for me to take my business elsewhere?"

The barkeep didn't think long on a riposte. Swiping the bills from Ax's fingers, he jerked his head toward one end of the bar, where hung a curtain of beads. Several strings were drawn to one side, and, while it was too dark to see beyond the shaped metal hanging from the archway, Ax noticed a distinctly feminine hand holding them open.

"Lucy'll see to your needs," Handlebars said, and Ax followed his direction, sliding from the barstool to the curtain.

The woman who met him in the short, dark corridor beyond the tinkling passageway came to just under his nose, her bleached-blonde tumble of curls smelling of salty toffee. She smiled unevenly at him, though through no fault of facial structure: while maybe not as perfect a specimen as Widow, she had a look of good breeding about her.

Ax wished he had a hat, just so he could tip it at her as he drawled, "Miss Lucy, I presume?"

She snickered. "It's been a long time since anyone's called me miss."

Ax did his best not to accost her too much with his frame. But, in a pale dress more dangling fringe than actual cloth, and with tits and hips ample enough to strain seams, she made for a difficult obstacle to pass. "You should have a word with your marshal." He smiled. "'Cause that's a crime."

She gave another snicker. "Easy on the charm, soldier. Your money's good enough for a screw."

Ax touched his chest. "You wound me, ma'am. I'm just looking for a comfortable place to rest my head a while." He grinned. "If that happens to be between the legs of a pretty lady, all the better."

"Just one?" she said, one side of her mouth quirking again.

"Well, there's more'n enough of me to go around a few times." He swung his gaze up and down her curves. "But, if you think you're up to the solo challenge...!"

She took a moment to do the same, offering him a long, gauging perusal.

He let her drink it in, because the flattery felt nice. But, after a few seconds of waiting, he bent his mouth close to her ear. "I hope I'm gonna get more than a look for my money."

She snorted. "You sure know how to make a gal feel special."

"Well, I could," he said, and shot her a friendly leer. "But, you're the one who wants to stand here jawing."

Lucy answered his wolfish grin with a kittenish purr. "You talk a good game," she murmured, and smiled. "Let's see what else you can do with that pretty mouth." Grabbing him by the shirt, she jerked him in the direction of the first half-open door.

He definitely got his money's worth, and then some: his tongue went nearly numb from having her grind upon his face, and he bucked so hard and fast against her hips, he could feel the tingling burn of exertion in his muscles. He almost laughed at how good she felt sitting on top of him, holding his dick inside even after he started to wane. He did laugh a little, cupping one full and hefty breast in his hand as he told her, "Goddamn. You are all woman."

"And you're all man," she said, tossing her curls from her forehead with a flick of one hand.

"The way you like 'em?" he asked, punctuating the question with a bounce of his hips.

She sighed, slipping off him with a low and wet squelch. "It pays the bills," she said, reaching off the bed for a slip of silk she pulled on over her head.

He followed her with his eyes but didn't quite sit up. "Don't tell me you're gettin' dressed already?"

"Well, I can't just sit around naked with you all day." She didn't even turn around, which nettled his nerves; he was getting tired of people not paying attention to him. "Time's money."

"I got money," Ax said...and frowned at how pathetic that sounded. He tried again, stretching the fingers of one hand upon the sheet as he cajoled, "Come on back. Just for a bit."

"You need to reload, soldier." Shooting a look at his spent and tired member, she let out a chuckle. "Looks like that'll take a while."

His smile fell. "I don't mean to fuck."

She turned back to him fully, lips pursed for a coo. "Oh, what do you want, a cuddle?" She shook her head and sniffed, not cruelly, but with a suitably professional detachment. "I'm not your wife."

His nipples perked at a sudden chill. "There's no wife. Not anymore."

Lucy hummed, looking pointedly at the chain around his neck, the one looped through the band of Sarah's diamond ring. "You sure about that? A man doesn't screw the way you do unless he's got something to prove."

He shrugged off the subtle jibe. "Just want the company." He swung his gaze around the cramped room, with its assortment of feminine trinkets, remnants of a life lost or could-have been, and ventured, "Don't you ever get lonely this far out on the Edge? Pretty thing like you?"

Her composed expression cracked, just a bit, a twitch at the corners of her eyes. She had subtle crow's feet there, he noticed, likely from too many years of hard sun and masking makeup. They didn't make her less attractive at the moment, though: company was company.

"Let's see it," she muttered, all business.

Collecting his trousers from the chair near the bed, he rummaged into the front pocket for another wad of go-to cash. She took it without looking or counting and tucked it into her slip, tight against one breast.

"You get an hour," she said, slipping beside him again.

Ax nodded, silently. Settling down, he put his arm over her and closed his eyes, pulling a long drag of the smell of her hair. Salty toffee.

He'd expected electric blue.

* * *

_**Next: Lost Boys  
**_


End file.
